No stranger to the world of superheroes, Matthew Vaughn may hold off on his Kick-Ass sequel plans to take charge on the next film in the X-Men series, the prequel/smells of reboot to me X-Men: First Class.
Hollywood Insider among others have the story that Fox is talking to Vaughn, who you may recall was slated to direct X-Men: The Last Stand before dropping out and making way for Brett Ratner (and we all know how that turned out), and though the talks are preliminary it shows that Fox is still eager to bring Vaughn on board the X-Men train.
It’s a typically incestuous and tangled past for the comic book film series. Bryan Singer’s two films were outstanding takes on the property, infusing the superhero genre with a real sense of weight and fun, and while he’s back on board after choosing Superman Returns instead of the third X-Men film, his date with Jack the Giant Killer restricts his involvement to a producing role.
I think it’ll be very interesting to see Singer and Vaughn on an X-Men movie, particularly this one, which is said to deal with the early years of the characters we know and love. So, earlier incarnations of Professor X and Magneto seem on the cards, and we’re sure to see the formation of the X-Men in this one. Vaughn’s solid film making and Singer’s story will make an intriguing film, if it came to pass.
I’m sure Fox is talking to other people, and given the history with The Last Stand Vaughn may well choose to focus on another of his project, the adaptation of the Jonathan Ross comic Turf may be in his future. Whatever happens the burnish of the X-Men series may have been dulled with The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, yet it remains an exciting and engaging concept and is sure to be a film of great interest.
An interesting aside to this is a call back to a story by our friend Brendon Connelly over at /Film, which reported that Kick-Ass writer Mark Millar turned down an offer from Fox to write an X-Men film, presumably not First Class, but could it be that Fox were so impressed by Kick-Ass that they wanted to plunder its creative team for its own comic book series?
