Wolverine and James Bond will soon be squaring off eight times a week. And here’s the first publicity photo of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in the Broadway play A Steady Rain, in which they play Chicago cops with enough troubles to fill Soldier Field. Jackman, who won a Tony in 2004 for hoofing it as 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, plays Denny, a patrolman with a racist streak and violent temper.

And Craig, a London stage veteran making his Broadway debut, plays Joey, a recovering alcoholic and gentler soul who may not be as docile as he first seems. In A Steady Rain, which just began rehearsals, the two buddies in blue recount a few harrowing days on the job and their very different accounts of a police call that quickly went south.

Performances of American playwright Keith Huff’s two-man play begin Sept. 10 with an official opening set for Sept. 29. The show, directed by Tony nominee John Crowley (The Pillowman), is scheduled to run through Dec. 6. And while I have my reservations about Craig’s porn-stache — a look that 007 could never get away with, thank heavens — I have to say that both stars look rugged, handsome, and intense. They can walk my beat any day.