It's almost like a whiplash flashback to the time leading up to the third X-Men movie. According to Deadline.com, Bryan Singer will NOT be directing the next X-Men movie in the pipeline, X-Men: First Class. Rather, he will be producing the movie along with Laura Shula-Donner and Simon Kinberg.
Why the change in role? Well turns out that Fox loved the script to the younger take on the X-Men, especially after the reboot-y success of the recent Star Trek franchise, that they want to speed up production, which causes a conflict as Bryan Singer is locked in with Warner Brothers to direct Jack The Giant Killer, and he can't film two movies at once.
So what does this mean for the X-Men: First Class movie? On one hand, it's scary because whenever Fox speeds up production on a movie, I worry that the quality then suffers. But on the bright side, I was never excited for Singer to be back in the director's chair for this movie. I feel as if we've already seen his vision for the X-Men, and I'm not quite sure given the younger take on the characters in this movie, he was the right choice. Now, of course I'd love it for Matthew Vaughn to direct it, especially after Kick-Ass, but that's doubtful. At this point, as long as it's not Brett Rattner, I think we'll be fine.
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well maybe they can get Matthew Vaughn interested again, it’s a shame they never went with him for X3 to begin with
Cue the X3 fans…
It’s great to still hear Singer has some involvement with his baby.
But like Bryan Fuller going back to Heroes for a few episodes….that never means it brings back the ‘glory days’.
@josh: I will personally step into the ring with anyone who thinks X3 was a good movie.
I don’t think we’ll be fine. From what I have heard, the whole concept of “X-Men: First Class” is horrendously flawed. “Star Trek” needed to reboot with a younger cast because the original actors are too old. X-Men does not have that problem because comic fans are used to the idea that comic characters do not age, they simply need to be recast, like James Bond. I assume that the X-Men appearing in “First Class” will be the original five, but that raises the problem of Angel and Ice Man having already been introduced in the movies as part of a younger generation. Furthermore, the most popular X-Men are not necessarily the original five. The “First Class” concept presumably does not allow for the appearance of Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit or Emma Frost, for instance. I understand that Magneto will also be appearing as the villain for the FOURTH TIME. I know the X-Men’s rogues gallery is not as extensive as Spider-Man’s, but c’mon. Why not introduce the Hellfire Club, Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, or even Proteus? The Sentinels might be too expensive to bring to the big screen, but they could probably do the Brood for a reasonable budget. It appears that the studio making the X-Men movies simply does not understand the X-Men mythos.
I’ve heard rumors that he’s interested in directing an X4.
Man, I would be so psyched if this was a film about the first X-Men calss from the comics, but I don’t believe it actually will be. If they’re staying within the movie continuity (and I would be totally fine if they just started anew) then you would think the first class would be Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm? Weren’t they established as the original X-Men in the movies? I can’t remember, exactly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen them.
I’m pretty sure that even if Uwe Boll directs this, I’ll still be fine.
@invasionforce: It all depends how FOX wants to handle the X-verse. It doesn’t seem like they want to go down the Marvel route of having their characters in a shared universe so rebooting isn’t so much of an issue.
That’s unfortunate. Mr. Singer did a solid job with the franchise and I would’ve liked to have see what he would do with this.
@josh: I wouldn’t go *that* far…
From all I’ve heard, this is a prequel to the current X-Men movies, not a reboot, so it sounds like the young X-Men will be Cyclops, Jean and Beast. They could include Storm too and pop in some new ones that never appeared before or ones that Xavier rescued at the end of Wolverine, such as Emma Frost. It will be extremely lame to put Wolverine in, but I’m betting now he has a cameo. Going with Magneto again is kind of tiring, I don’t care if this a younger version. Show some other damn villains.
So, I guess there won’t be a long scene where Scott spies on Jean and Bobby through the window. …And X3 was just ok, dawg.
X3 was nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Was it as good as the first 2? no. was it as bad as Wolverine? No.
It’s funny how it seems FOX is committed to keep their X-verse in continuity….Or as much as it can be (see Wolverine film to see huge leaps of story logic). But for Deadpool, all of them say ‘Ah we’ll just reinvent the character and start a new’.
I know Deadpool is a different beast, but for some reason FOX is willing to change Deadpool to keep fans happy but not for the X-Men.
Scrap everything, start from scratch. Forger the continuity, it was butchered in the last 4 movies anyways. Every director trying to get as many cameos as possible has shot the whole storyline up, let alone the characterization.
@TNC – Deadpool is a marketable character that was butchered in Wolverine. Sewing his mouth shut and giving him an unknowable amount of powers was idiotic and lost what people liked about him. I think they’ll get him back to basics and do two movies with him before they ruin that franchise also.
@CGPO: I’ll be pumped if they use Plant Man instead. Or Mechano.
Those are really within budget if you ask me, they are both characters with simple designs and even powers.
I feel pretty meh about this movie as a whole. I like the idea of restarting the franchise, but I just don’t think this will have the magic that will put people in seats (and as Conor noted, it will probably not follow the vision of the original team). And not that it matters to me, but if Wolverine is not in this movie, it probably won’t do as well as they project because he seems to be the draw in the first three films.
@josh – there are X3 fans?
@Zeppo I liked X3. I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it enough that I own it on DVD.
To continue the "we won’t be fine" director list:
Paul W.S. Anderson
I don’t want it to be any director who did anything in the last 3 years.
X3 was notable in its blandness other than its outright awfulness.
I’m glad to hear Singer is still involved. I wish he were directing, but with him at least involved in the project I think we’ll get something of quality, high or mediocre, I’m hoping for better then the last two X films.
@TNC well during one of the endings for wolverine(different theaters got different ones) we see the real deadpool pick up the sewn up mouth guys head. apparently that was a clone of Wade. I guess in order to properly give it all those powers they had to regrow the body. But that’s apparently why the clone didn’t know who Logan was. So they gave themselves an out basically cause they probably knew Deadpool would get his own movie.
The real problem with x3 is Wolverine’s magic pants. At the end of the film when Phoenix shreds his costume and is literally flaying his skin from his bones, his pants somehow remain completely intact. I mean, why didn’t they just make an entire suit out of the pants material. Then everyone would have been fine.
After the whole jacket debacle, Logan wasn’t taking any chances.
@UNSPUNX-Just like the question of ‘Why don’t they make entire airplanes out of the same material as the black box?’
Not a great loss for all his qualities as a director Singer doesn’t do action very well
As long as Patrick Stewart is Prof. X does any of the other casting matter?
@Smasher: It definitely matters that Patrick Stewart NOT be cast as Professor X in a prequel movie about his younger days.
Russel Brand for young Professor X!
The colon in the title isn’t for grammatical effect. It is a subliminal warning.
@conor: Duly noted. I suppose X-Men: 1st Class could feature a bipedal Charles Xavier finding muties and end with a leg crunching crescendo.
Still, there are certain roles I could only see played by specific actors and right now – Patrick Stewart as Prof. X is one of them.
@USPUNX
My biggest logic problem was why Magneto need to move that bridge. For some reason he decides to move the entire Golden Gate Bridge just to transport a few dozen mutants? Ratner is a jackass who just wanted a cool/grand effect and forgot to write in a reason for it to happen…