In a report this morning from Deadline, it is confirmed that director Matthew Vaughn is officially signed back on to direct the sequel to his 2011 hit ‘X-Men: First Class’.
This is spectacular news! I am aware that I am in the minority, but ‘X-Men: First Class’ is the only X-Men film that I enjoyed so far. The first two X-Men films were missing some of the epic fun that permeated the comics that I read in the mid-80s. (And we won’t even get started on the travesty that was ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’.)
I’m just hoping that Vaughn can deliver another amazing outing with the sequel, especially since he’s going on a script from Simon Kinberg, who wrote the script for the aforementioned horror of ‘The Last Stand’.
And while there are no solid details on Kinberg’s script, the ‘First Class’ sequel is rumored to be revolving around the struggles of Charles Xavier in the wake of the events of the first film. Mutants have been made public and lines are going to be drawn both pro and con.
James McAvoy, how played Xavier in the original, had this to say on the sequel:
I’m very interested to see where we pick up with Charles Xavier, to be honest. In the film we just did, ‘First Class,’ we got to see how Magneto becomes Magneto, how he leaves Erik behind and takes on the persona of Magneto. We’ve yet to see how Charles develops into Professor X. I think that’s going to be interesting to take a look at.
When it comes to the relationship between Xavier and Magneto, Michael Fassbender (Magneto) lends a few thoughts:
[Xavier’s] got some major shit to deal with. He’s just been paralyzed and he’s been betrayed by the person who he’s probably come to care about more than anybody else in the world, and he’s the guy who did it to him.
I have faith in Vaughn taking another spin with these characters and I’m stoked to see another story that revolves around Xavier and Erik’s friendship and how the two sides of mutant politics come to play in the world. And especially since ‘X-Men: First Class’ was set against the backdrop of the 60s, I’d love to see the sequel set in the 70s with a trilogy finale focusing on the Mutant Registration Act and the formation of the new team (a la ‘Giant-Size X-Men’ #1) in the 80s.
