Things are going according to plan for the future of the X-Men film universe... at least according to my thoughts on what we'd see from Fox Studios going forward. As expected, Bryan Singer is back in the fold and will be directing the prequel X-Men: First Class, and X-Men Origins: Magneto is seemingly even less likely to happen than before.

While some X-Men fans were hopeful of the second X-Men Origins film following the history of the master of magnetism, to me it was the least likely of the projects in development to happen. Not only would such a project require a re-cast of the title character, which would never please the full fanbase, but it would therefore be less bankable since the actors would be new to the franchise. Magneto was cool for the X-Men trilogy but would moviegoers buy into him as the lead with Sir Ian McKellen not playing him?

A Magneto origins feature would have been about a his younger self meeting a young Professor X (also re-cast) and their developing relationship before the formulation of the X-Men. While it may have been a great story on paper, we know that there would of course be an infusion of mutant characters who don't belong into the film to make it a flashy blockbuster affair and we don't need that.

David Goyer was signed last summer to write and possibly direct the Magneto spinoff but since then, plans for said film have been put on hold. Goyer's original idea for the story of the Magneto film was as follows:

“The storyline will heavily involve Professor X, the wheelchair-using X-Men leader. That character was a soldier in the allied force that liberated the concentration camps. The professor meets Magneto after the war and while they bond over the realization that they are alike in their special powers, their differences soon turn them into enemies.”

Since X-Men Origins: Wolverine debuted to big box office numbers (though we can't say the same for its critical reception), a growing number of X-Men films have been pushed into development. Skip forward to the Blu-ray release of the Wolverine origin movie, and producer Lauren Shuler Donner discussed the main four X-projects in development: Wolverine 2, X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Magneto and Deadpool. First Class and Magneto were already being written by Josh Schwartz and Goyer respectively and a Deadpool spinoff was dependent on the reception of Ryan Reynolds' cameo in the Wolverine movie.

At the time, Donner said that Magneto was low on the priority list:

“David Goyer has written a brilliant script. It starts in the concentration camps and has Magneto coming out of there. But you know, I’m not sure that film is going to be made. The studio has a wealth of potential stories, and they have to stand back and decide which ones to make. And Magneto, I think, is at the back of the queue. Maybe it’ll get made in five years – who knows? I can tell you that Ian McKellen won’t be playing the character the whole way through. We used Lola technology in X-Men 3 to de-age Ian and Patrick for one scene, but it’s very expensive. To do that for a two-hour movie would be prohibitive financially. And to find a younger actor to fill Ian’s shoes, that’s pretty daunting. It’s not easy.”

As we know, Deadpool was greenlit and they're bringing in writers (possibly the writers behind Zombieland) to handle that film; Wolverine 2 was pushed ahead and is being written by Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), and the most recent development of course was the confirmation of Bryan Singer taking the helm of First Class and writer Jamie Moss brought on board to pen the script. Add to that the fact that Donner is in the early stages of also planning a possible X-Men 4 and New Mutants movies and there's no room for Magneto anytime soon with all of these fresh new projects introducing new characters, large casts and plenty of cross-over opportunity.

There's only so many resources to go around and from Fox's perspective, which have more potential to not only bank the most coin, but spawn new franchises?

Continue to Page 2 for my prediction on Magneto and what Bryan Singer has to say about it and the character being in First Class...

X-Men - Bryan Singer

Before I get into the latest on the topic of Magneto, this is what I said on October 25th in Part two of my look into the future of the X-Men:

"I’m sorry for the Magneto fans out there but I think the idea of a movie featuring a younger Magneto and Prof. X has been replaced by X-Men: First Class where they can again play with a large cast of characters to market and merchandise. If my predictions on that come true, I think it’s possible we see a younger Magneto working alongside Patrick Stewart’s Xavier in that movie to build and start the school for mutants."

It's not a stretch at all considering all of the talk in the first X-Men movie about Magneto helping build Cerebro and their history of being friends before their different perspectives forced Xavier and Magneto onto different paths. Then of course, the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine which was inserted specifically to lead into X-Men: First Class.

So, now that Bryan Singer is on board and already has the story he wants to tell in mind, this is what he had to say about the story of First Class in an interview with THR's Heat Vision Blog:

"...it’s secret. But it’s basically about the formation of the X-Men. How they began and the relationship between a young Xavier and a young Magneto."

No surprise here. Heat Vision went on to ask about if the X-Men can become overbearing with Wolverine, Deadpool and Magneto all possibly getting new solo movies.

"This story would probably utilize some of the Magneto story because it deals with a young Magneto, so it might supersede that because this would explore that relationship between a young energetic professor and a disenfranchised victim of the Holocaust."

Supersede the Magneto movie? How interesting. It's almost exactly like my thoughts on this. Bryan, give me a call if you'd like an assistant on First Class. ;)

Don't expect a Magneto film anytime soon, there's too much potential in other X-Men properties that haven't been explored yet and more for the title team.

For a little more detail on what we can expect, Singer also touched on the topic in speaking with Daily Variety last week.

"This is the formative years of Xavier and Magneto, and the formation of the school and where there relationship took a wrong turn... There is a romantic element, and some of the mutants from 'X-Men' will figure into the plot, though I don't want to say which ones. There will be a lot of new mutants and a great villain."

For those curious about Singer's other projects, it looks like he may be doing Jack the Giant Killer first (possibly in 3D after he saw Avatar) and they've just finalized the deal for Battlestar Galactica and are still in negotiations for Excalibur.

I'm excited to see Singer back in the fold and I expect he'll bring the franchise back to the high standards he set with his first two X-Men movies. I also would like to see McKellen back for First Class alongside Patrick Stewart, perhaps using that de-aging tech employed in the last two installments. They'd only need McKellen for the first First Class movie if this does end up turning into its own franchise of prequels as producer Lauren Shuler Donner hinted at before.

I promise that more X-Men goodies are on the way, so stay tuned into Screen Rant and follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Bonus: If Ian McKellen were to have his own Magneto movie, here's a cool fan-made concept trailer.

Sources: THR, Variety