“Kick Ass” comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray today and therefore its filmmaker Matthew Vaughn is talking and of course he’s being asked about his upcoming directorial gig “X-Men: First Class.”
Here’s some brief highlights.
MTV tried a clever roundabout way in confirming the participation of characters Cyclops and Jean Gray — by asking will their relationship storyline blossom without Wolverine — but Vaughn wasn’t biting and deflected the answer with, “I can’t shed any light on that at all. I think that would be giving too much away.”
Vaughn also admitted that in watching Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” he decided to tear out twelve pages of the script because they featured a similar dream-time fight sequence. “I saw ‘Inception,’ which I loved,” Vaughn told the L.A. Times. “But my heart sank when I saw that a few of the ideas we had were up [on the screen]. So it’s either leave it in and look as if you’re copying or change things. We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards.”
Talking to IGN, Vaughn said the successful younger reboot of “Star Trek” is the model that he’s looking to follow in that in featured new actors, but stayed faithful to the films before it. “Obviously [Abrams] couldn’t make everyone happy with that one, but he did a pretty good job,” Vaughn said. “He made a fantastically exciting reinvention of that world, with those great characters. And I think there will be comparisons a little bit with ‘X-Men: First Class.” It’s very similar, in a way. But we’re doing some cool stuff in this movie, some really cool stuff that you haven’t seen before.”
Vaughn also had a lot of praise for producer Bryan Singer’s original treatment/concept which this film is based on. “The story that Bryan Singer came up with is very, very smart. It’s very clever when you see how he has integrated the characters into the time period where the film is set. I’ll put it that way. I just don’t want to give it away. … It’s a very clever way of getting these characters involved in recent history, in recent world events.”
Some folks, including us, have been worried that the filmmakers are cramming too many mutant characters into the film, but Vaughn isn’t concerned. “In terms of having a lot of mutants, it doesn’t feel that busy,” he told MTV. “I don’t feel worried about it. I think it will be really cool to see all these guys doing their stuff. I’m very keen that it has a lot of heart, this movie. You understand where these characters have come from, and you obviously know where they’re going, but to see that very important point of their lives where they’re discovering their power and working out their ethical take on what to do with their power — it’s a very interesting story to tell.”
Vaughn also says the cast are currently “training every day for several hours,” and are seriously committed to diets (no fatties!) and their roles.
“X-Men: First Class” stars James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Caleb Landry Jones (Phoenix), Alice Eve (Emma Frost), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Edi Gathegi (Darwin), Kevin Bacon (possibly the villain Sebastian Shaw) and Lucas Till (Havoc). There’s a persistent rumor that says Aaron Johnson will play Cyclops, but that’s been confirmed, denied, and back again. The film is scheduled to shoot in August and then has a quick turn-around release date of June 3, 2011.