This should come as no surprise. Bryan Singer, who successfully shepherded the first two great X-men movies but then ditched to make one crappy Superman film, has signed on to helm X-men: First Class. Singer pretty much let it be known that he was interested, and at the LA premier of James Cameron's Avatar he made it official:
I’m prepping up to do a movie called Jack the Giant Killer [at] Warner Brothers, and I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men First Class Origins picture, which is kind of cool.
X-men: First Class is perfect for the youthful Singer, who brought in a host of young mutants to balance out the veterans in the first two X-men films. This project will focus on the early days of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Producer Laura Schuler Donner has been speaking very openly on the project over the last few months. Her description of the possible franchise:
So it’s young Scott, young Jean, young Beast and that’ll be really fun. I think (the plan) is to follow some of the characters into their own stories, and weave them back into the X-Men world. And hopefully First Class will become its own franchise and we can follow them as they grow up.
Good news, indeed. I love Singer as a director, even if Superman Returns was a shallow mess that was only watchable thanks to Kevin Spacey. At this point, I'm far more interested in First Class than I am any X-men 4 project and definitely more than Wolverine 2.
