Perhaps it’s best to think less of X-Men as an ongoing series with its own continuity and cast of returning characters, and the actors inhabiting said roles, every three years and more the comic book one-shots of yesteryear like the iconic Giant Sized X-Men #1 or Frank Miller's Wolverine min-series.
X-Men: First Class was a great one-off.
Unfortunately it left fans wanting more. Begging for more confrontations between James McAvoy's now-wheelchair bound Xavier and Michael Fassbender's Magneto whose anger from his own torture and persecution turned him into an anti-human militant. Maybe more in the latter part of the 1960s incorporating other defining events from that era like Vietnam (They could shoe-horn in another Hugh Jackman cameo) or move forward a decade to the 70s where more perceived "out there" aspects of the comics like the Sentinels or Asteroid M could work.
Problem is First Class didn't make much a dent at the box-office last June.
I know fanboys love to use the fallback Batman Begins comparison. But they have no idea what they're talking about. Chris Nolan's reboot played strong during its summer 2005 theatrical run and crossed the $200 million blockbuster goal-line. People, your friends and co-workers the kind of people who don't roam fan-forums and religiously follow the career paths of directors, were talking about it. Telling their friends "You have to see that new Batman movie. Trust me, it's awesome!" It had momentum. It had enthusiasm. And then it reached even more people on home video. They wanted to see Nolan further explore that Joker calling card in Begins' closing sequence.
Nobody's talking about First Class unfortunately. Except for us, the devoted nerds.
Its box-office was a letdown when you factor in the cost to get it made. Remember it was greenlit in May 2010 on the basis of Jamie Moss' first draft from a treatment cooked up by Bryan Singer who only passed on directing because of his commitment to Jack the Giant Killer. Plus they had to assemble a new cast, recreate the 1960s and all those visual effects. And they had to do all this at an extraordinarily accelerated rate to meet its June 2011 release. Costs blew well past $200 million to get that done (Fox is quoting it was closer to $140 million but nobody with common sense and knowledge of how movies get made believe that) and it was the lowest grossing installment in the franchise's history. The fanboys are right about one thing. Its doing great on video like Batman Begins. But that's a shrinking market these days and not often do sequels get made from home video sales.
Fox, to their credit, is on the first steps to fans getting what they want. Superhero Hype! says the studio has commissioned Simon Kinberg for writing duties on an X-Men: First Class sequel.
I'm already hearing those same fans complain about this call. Keep in mind, you guys bitch and moan about Kinberg being one of the writers for X-Men: The Last Stand for Brett Ratner, the guy they continue to insist "fucked up" the franchise. But Kinberg did all his work under the supervision your Geek God Matthew Vaughn before he bailed on the production weeks before filming began. The same Matthew Vaughn who directed X-Men: First Class. So once again, you have no idea what you're talking, in this case complaining, about.
Also it's early on and from what we're hearing Vaughn is on the fence about doing another one and this is more about having something in development so Marvel and the Mouse can't get their paws on the mutants. "Development" as in something going throw various screenwriters and eventually it either gets made or collects dust in the Fox vaults. So X-Men: First Class might in fact remain just a great one-off movie when it's all said and done. And if so, that isn't anything to complain about.
Fri, November 4, 2011 
