After his somewhat acrimonious exit from the “X-Men” franchise to direct “Superman Returns,” many were surprised when Bryan Singer announced towards the end of last year that he’d be returning to Fox to direct “X-Men: First Class,” a Muppet Babies style prequel film focusing on the adolescent days of the mutant heroes. The LA Times has a huge interview with Bryan Singer appearing in the Calendar section on Sunday, but an extended version just went online, and the director spilled all kinds of beans on the planned project, as well as another pair of “X-Men” movies that he may be involved in.
On “X-Men: First Class,” Singer confirms that it’ll focus on younger versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast etc, with younger actors taking on the roles (The writer asks if Hugh Jackman will appear as Wolverine, to a shrug from Singer, but we can’t see how — he first encounters the characters in the first “X-Men” movie, so unless they bring in an irritating, continuity-breaking cameo, of the kind that “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was full of, we imagine not).
More importantly, though, the film will hinge on the relationship between Magneto and Professor X, and the point at which their friendship turned into emnity. Singer says “Just doing younger mutants is not enough. The story needs to be more than that. I love the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, these two men who have diametrically opposite points of view but still manage to be friends — to a point. They are the ultimate frenemies.” While he loses points for using the word ‘frenemies,’ we’re glad the story will focus on something other than teen-superheroes-in-training. Interestingly, the Sheldon Turner/David Goyer script for “X-Men Origins: Magneto” had much the same hook, so this seems to confirm previous reports that the project has now been abandoned. There’s no word if Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen will also reprise their roles — it’d be heavy mantle for any actor to take on, but surely doing the whole film with CGI botox, like that used in “X-Men: The Last Stand,” would be prohibitively expensive.
Otherwise, there seems to be a fourth installment of the main “X-Men” franchise in the works, which series producer Lauren Shuler Donner, also present for the interview, is courting Singer for — she tells the director that “I’m holding it open with high hopes. It’s totally different [from “First Class”] and it will be so interesting for you.” Though note, Singer’s response was, “Hold that one off for just a little, I’m fixated on the other one right now [“First Class”].”
Furthermore, Singer reveals that he recently had lunch with Jackman, which may or may not have been regarding the “Wolverine” sequel, written by Singer’s frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, and set to shoot later in the year. It seems unlikely that Singer could do both, however, as well as “Jack The Giant Killer,” which he’s attached to do in the near future for Warner Bros., but as the director acknowledges “I wish I could be four people, I could make everybody happy,” which suggests he’d be open to all of it if he had the chance (and conspiracy theorists note, when Singer brings up Jackman, Donner asked to speak to him about it off the record in front of the journo, does that fuel the “Wolverine 2” possibilities?)
It’s a very good piece, and one that, combined with rewatching half an hour of “X2” on TV last weekend, reminded us how good the two Singer Marvel movies are. If we have to see a mutant Hogwarts movie, we’re at least glad that it’s Singer at the helm.