The Wolverine will stand alone from the X-Men movies for the most part.  It loosely ties in to the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, and it won't reference X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  So how will The Wolverine connect to Bryan Singer's upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past?  According to Wolverine director James Mangold, it won't.  Mangold explains that they were already at work on their movie when Singer signed on to Days of Future Past, so there was no way to make the films tie together.  That doesn't necessarily mean they'll contradict each other or that The Wolverine takes place in an alternate universe.  What it probably means is that no one in Days of Future Past will turn to Logan and say, "Hey buddy!  How was Japan?"

Hit the jump for Mangold's full quote, and click here to check out a new sumi-e poster for the flick.  The film stars Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tee, Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, and Svetlana Khodchenkova.  The Wolverine opens in 3D on July 26th.

Here's what Mangold had to say about SFX about The Wolverine and Days of Future Past:

“Bryan and I have talked and he’s seen what we’ve done,” The Wolverine director James Mangold tells SFX. “Clearly the reality is that we are all trying to work together and make things groove together. But the trick is we were making our movie before Bryan came on and before I knew what they were up to in that film. Our agenda was always our agenda and our movie stands alone, so the journey we take Logan on in The Wolverine, we bring to a close.”

Here's the official synopsis for The Wolverine:

Based on the celebrated comic book arc, this epic action-adventure takes Wolverine, the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world he faces his ultimate nemesis in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality, emerging more powerful than we have ever seen him before.