‘X-Men: First Class’ was arguably the best of all of Marvel’s mutant-based films to date. Director Matthew Vaughn made the mutant heroes, which had been nearly ruined by the two previous dismal outings in ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, into a franchise worth following again.
The sequel has been talked about since almost the time that the first ‘First Class’ film hit theaters. At first, rumor was that Simon Kinberg, from the aforementioned ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, was working on a script.
That rumor may still be just that but we do have some hard facts about the potential script. Actor James McAvoy, who played Charles Xavier in the first film, has been making the rounds to promote his new holiday film ‘Arthur Christmas’. McAvoy recently spoke with i09 and the subject of a new ‘X-Men’ film was approached. McAvoy had this to say about his character and what’s going on with the script process at this point:
“I know that with Charles, you either have to write him out of the movie or give him an interesting story… He’s lost his best friend, essentially, and he’s just been paralyzed from the waist down. Which is just a huge, huge blow to his considerable ego. So he’s got to deal with that.
I don’t care if he’s a superhero and has brain powers or not, he’s just had a huge part of his physical life taken away from him, by someone he cares about more than anyone else. So he’s got to deal with that. That’s part of the interesting ideas that we’re talking about with Matthew [Vaughn], that Matthew’s very excited about which I think is fantastic, but I can’t really get into them with you because they may (or may not) form the spine of the story.
The good thing is, I don’t think Fox is rushing into it just because it did well. They want to make sure they get a good script, because if you can’t get a good story there’s no point in doing it. It can be a stand-alone film if we can’t figure out a good story.
…That’s what Matthew is talking about, he’s come up with a particularly interesting idea, last time I spoke with him. So he’s pitching that to Fox, and they’ve basically just got to write the script.”
Regardless of who is actually on script duty, it sounds like Vaughn has a focus on where he wants the tale of the mutant team, and their esteemed professor in particular, to go. It would be nice to see a sequel that focuses further on the ever-strained relationship between Charles Xavier and his once friend Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto).
If they can take the great start that began with ‘First Class’ and move it into more of the X-Men mythos, I would expect fans of the series and the comics to be in for a treat. Stay tuned for more details on this sequel as we get them.
