With Hugh Jackman’s recent decision to quit Avon Man, he’s got more time in his schedule to train for Fox’s sequel to Wolverine. And now it appears that the choice of director has been narrowed down to two possibilities, with Twilight: Eclipse’s David Slade and Red’s Robert Schwentke the leading contenders, according to the Vulture blog.

Slade, of course, can parlay his recent experience directing hairy creatures that fight in Eclipse and his past work on the likes of 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy. While thanks to Red’s healthy buzz, Schwentke has become something of the Ryan Reynolds of the megaphone world, lining up possible projects one after the other.

According to Vulture’s sources, Slade has the upper hand right now, but Jackman is even now putting them through their paces, Dragon’s Den-style to see who gets the job. Okay, so he’s probably just talking to them, being as he's a nice fella, but we like to think of it that way.

Christopher McQuarrie has written one of the most recent drafts of the script, which finds Logan still in Japan (where one of the tags from the first film left him). He kicks off a romance with a woman who is already engaged to be married, but of course that doesn’t stop Wolvie given his foul mood after the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Cue a fight!

Once a director has been picked, the film is scheduled to start shooting in January.