Newsbites: The sequels and re-issues edition!

1. Hugh Jackman says he will quit playing the character that made him famous if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a hit when it comes out in May of next year. But if he does play everyone’s favorite Canadian superhero again, he says he wouldn’t mind taking the character to Japan. — WENN, MTV Splash Page

2. Iron Man 2 screenwriter Justin Theroux says there has been no dialogue between himself and the writers of the other Marvel Studios movies — not yet, at any rate — even though several of the superheroes being introduced to the big-screen these days are supposed to team up in The Avengers less than three years from now. — MTV Splash Page

3. Universal Pictures has struck a deal with the Robert Ludlum estate that gives them exclusive rights to the Jason Bourne character — even though the character doesn’t really exist any more, now that everyone knows his real name is David Webb, etc. The deal also gives Universal first look at other Ludlum novels. — Variety

4. Steve Guttenberg wants to revive the Police Academy (1984-1994) franchise. Which is interesting, since there were seven movies in that series, and he only appeared in four of them; after that, the series got so bad that even he didn’t bother to take part in it any more. Oh, and he wants fellow Police Academy alumni Kim Cattrall (she was in the first movie) and Sharon Stone (she was in the fourth movie) to come back for more, too. Stone might be so desperate for a job these days that she’d take the role, but Cattrall doesn’t really need the work, thanks to Sex and the City. — The Sun

5. Guttenberg also says he has been talking to Tom Selleck and Ted Danson about making another sequel to Three Men and a Baby (1987). Since Danson played the baby’s father in the first movie, and Selleck married the baby’s mother in the first sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), perhaps Guttenberg could get involved with the mother in the third movie — just to balance things out. Then again, maybe not. The working title for the third film is Three Men and a Bride. Incidentally, the first film was a remake of the French comedy 3 hommes et un couffin (1985), which itself had a sequel many years later called 18 ans après (2003) — so there is a precedent for producing sequels after long gaps between films, in this franchise. — The Sun

6. Seth Gordon, director of the documentary The King of Kong (2007) as well as the new comedy Four Christmases, says Donkey Kong champ Billy Mitchell was worse in real life than the documentary made him out to be, and he might reveal more of Mitchell’s darker side in the dramatized remake of his documentary that is currently in the works. — SpoutBlog

7. Back to the Future (1985) will be re-issued on DVD next year in a brand-new two-disc set; the sequels will be re-issued as stand-alone single-disc sets. I wonder what sort of re-issue there will be in 2015, which is when the first section of Back to the Future Part II (1989) is set. — BTTF.com