Bryan Singer Not Directing X-Men: First Class?

Interesting news coming from HitFix:  apparently Bryan Singer may not be returning to direct X-Men: First Class after all.

According to their souces, Singer is currently in pre-production on the Warner Bros fantasy film Jack the Giant Killer, and there is absolutely no chance that he will be able to start work on the new X-Men prequel before that film is finished. 

Fox, rolling in Avatar gazillions right now and not wanting to wait to get their next X-Men projects up and running, have apparently already met with "at least two filmmakers this week" to possibly take Singer's place if he is unavailable to direct the film.

HitFix didn't say who the possible replacement filmmakers were, but did report that they were people with comic-book movie experience who fanboys would definitely approve of. 

Going by that, I'm going to hope that Brett Ratner hasn't received any phone calls from Fox recently. 

The timing seems weird on this news.  It was just earlier this week that Singer and X-Men producer Lauren Shuler-Donner spoke with the Los Angeles Times about their plans not only for X-Men: First Class, but also hinted that Singer might possibly direct Wolverine 2 and maybe even an X-Men 4.  He's certainly seemed excited about his return to the franchise since it was announced he would be back for this film.

Now it looks like he may just have a producer role on First Class and Wolverine 2, and his directorial return will have to wait until X-Men 4 (if that happens at all).  If there's any positive to be taken from this so far, it does look like this is going down a lot more amicably than the whole X3/Superman Returns fiasco did a few years ago.

But whatever is going on...Fox, please don't screw this up!

Comments

[A2theH]

Damn it!!!!! It's X-men 3 all over again.