The Wolverine director James Mangold has joined the remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's crime drama The Red Circle (Le cercle rouge).

The classic starred Alain Delon as an ex-con who gets pulled back into the world of crime by teaming up with a hitman for another heist.

Producer Arthur M. Sarkissian recently interviewed and spoke about how he feels about the director.

"James to me is a guy's director. He's from the world of the old school of movies. 'The Getaway', 'The Wild Bunch'. I see him in that world. He loves movies. '3:10 to Yuma', to me, was one of the best remakes ever. It's very difficult to top an original and I think he did that absolutely beautifully because I don't think the Glenn Ford/Delmer Daves version worked as well as the one he did."

The producer also spoke about the original script compared to the new one.

"It's dated. It's just dated. The characters, if you see it, Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonté, Bourvil and Yves Montand were fantastic, but the story kind of doesn't hold together. It falls apart and doesn't make sense in certain areas. It's basically pretty much the same storyline. It's about a guy who's in prison, who was put in prison by someone, he lost the love of his life to this gangster who put him away for five years and he comes out seeking revenge. He hooks up with this guy who's a hitman to try and do damage to this gangster."

The director is currently working on The Wolverine, which has already started production, working towards a July 26, 2013 release date.

This project is expected to start production next summer in Hong Kong and Macau.