A few days back, we put up part one of “The Next X-Men Films” series, our look into the future of Fox Studio’s growing and financially successful movie series based on Marvel’s mighty mutants. This was based on quotes from Empire’s recent feature on Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of all films X-Men related, and today we’ll look at the other two anticipated films she spoke about.

In Part One we discussed Wolverine 2, the most-likely-to-happen solo flick out of Fox’s development slate as well as X-Men: First Class, the prequel to Bryan Singer’s first X-Men which is currently in its writing stages with Josh Schwartz penning the script.

Now, it’s time to look at two other popular character solo movies that are in early stages of development: Deadpool and X-Men Origins: Magneto. One of these is likely to happen, one may not.

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The folks at Empire had a chance to speak with Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of all films X-Men related, at the press junket for the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Blu-ray and they discussed the future of the franchise.

The feature that Empire put together on the interview was broken down into four sections for each of the movies: Wolverine 2, X-Men: First Class, Deadpool, and Magneto. We’ll go through and discuss each, passing to you the key things Donner says and giving our thoughts on it and how it relates to what we expected to see from these movies since their inception.

To start, here’s the latest on Wolverine 2 and X-Men: First Class…

Last week we reported on an interview with Hugh Jackman where he joked about how he always says he’s not doing another X-Men film until he reads the script. He continued to jokingly say that he’d do eleven more movies as Wolverine and that was it.

The next appearance of Hugh’s buffed up mutant will likely come with a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine which will see the Marvel poster boy head to Japan to explore the stories of one of the most classic Wolverine tales from the comics. One question surrounding this movie is whether or not director Gavin Hood would be asked to return by Fox Studios to helm the follow-up.

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Hood touches on this subject and that of District 9, the sleeper hit of the year directed by a fellow South Africa, Neill Blomkamp.

Hugh Jackman, the man made famous for bringing one of the most popular superheroes to life in the X-Men movies, sat down to talk with Katie Couric at CBS News where they spoke about the character of Wolverine and the movies.

Funny enough, the interview started with Couric kindly dropping the bomb that she’s not exactly a fan which set off a bunch of laughs before they continued to touch on the future of the character and movies.

Hugh reveals that he’s not in it for the money, he doesn’t need that. He’s there because he loves Wolverine, he loves playing the character, and its a ton of fun for him. Check out the interview after the jump.

It’s no secret that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was supposed to be the first “Blockbuster film of summer” – and wasn’t. While it offered some visually striking scenes, and frankly, more Wolverine, there was a lot left that didn’t stoke the fires of love in the house of Wolvy fans everywhere.

While our coverage of the movie conveyed all you’ll need to know about the feature film in general, what follows is a special Screen Rant review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s Blu-ray Special Features – an invasive, probing, look at the details NOT included on the regular DVD offerings, that promises to be at least as sharp as the steel tendrils that pumped adamantium into Wolverine himself. So like Wolverine, strap in, get prepped and ready as we crack the Blu-ray special features realm wide open here at Screen Rant.

The news the other day about producer Lauren Schuler Donner hinting at the beginnings of plans for an X-Men 4 movie (and a movie based on The New Mutants) got me thinking of some of the infinite possibilities for the next X-Men installment.

I could go on and on about stories and characters I’d like to see, but keeping to the basics, I’ll discuss some of the issues from the existing X-trilogy that need to be rectified going forward with the next movie, should it come to fruition.

Join us as we discuss what we’d like to see from X-Men 4 and open the floor for your ideas!

The X-Men franchise has a bright future on the silver screen. With multiple projects in their early stages of development and several given the greenlight after the financial success of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to kick off this summer, there seems to be no end in sight for what the future may hold of Fox Studio’s hot property.

I’ll bet Disney wishes they could have picked up this film license in their acquisition of Marvel…

Aside from solo films for Magneto and Deadpool, and the prequel team-up film X-Men: First Class, we might be getting a movie based on the New Mutants comic line and… a possible X-Men 4?

Fox Studios held a presentation yesterday in LA to show-off the upcoming release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Blu-ray and DVD. Producer Lauren Schuler Donner and director Gavin Hood were in attendance to answer some questions about the franchise, adapting the source material and the sequel to Wolverine’s first solo adventure.

The Blu-ray edition for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is set to be something special with the plethora of bonus features it includes. There’s even a live feature that allows viewers the option to see information on the actors on screen while they watch through IMDB. It essentially will let you look at previous & upcoming projects for all of your favorite stars.

You can head over to Latino Review who were in attendance for more information on this and some of the deleted scenes they got to see. We’re instead going to focus on what was said in the Q&A session about X-Men Origins: Wolverine and its sequel, Wolverine 2.

So we just finished telling you why the Summer of 2009 was the season of bad movies. Now, as if to validate our point (sarcasm alert) Variety has just announced that the Summer of ‘09 has set a new record as the highest grossing summer of all time at the U.S. domestic box office.

So there you have it, folks, it’s official: Hollywood has no reason to ever hire good writers, produce good scripts, or offer us anything better at the multiplex than what Michael Bay can half-envision.

Awesome.

Well, the summer movie season is officially over, and while box office earnings are way up, it seems like the quality of the films have actually gone way down.  But for every few badly-written movies (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe–though some will say it’s not that bad), there was a diamond in the rough like District 9.  So why were so many movies so bad in the summer of ‘09, even if they did make a lot of money?  Hint: The Writers Strike!

Before the summer began, I wrote an article about how the 2007 Writers Strike might affect the summer 2009 movies.  I speculated that back in 2007, studios were nervous about how long the writers strike could last, leaving them with a possible lack of films for the fall/winter 2008 and all-important summer 2009 season (early May to late August 2009). To make sure they had big films lined up for Summer ‘09, the studios pushed to have their big-budget scripts quick-finished before the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) contracts were up in November 2007 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in summer of 2008.

The nominees have been announced for the fourth annual Scream Awards, held every year by Spike TV. The decisively more “fan-friendly” award ceremony (compared to the Oscars) honors films from the sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic-book genres of movies, TV shows and comic books. The awards are described as, “the first and only global event of its kind,” to honor those genres.

The Scream 2009 nominees were chosen by the Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders, a list which this year includes the likes of Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth and Zack Snyder, plus many more. The event will be taped on Saturday, October 17th this year at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and will air on Spike TV ten days later on Tuesday, October 27th (check for local times).

Along with the awards, the show will also be airing some exclusive, world premiere of footage of some of the most anticipated movies of 2010! Presenters and musicians for the event are to be announced shortly.

In our last discussion of the story and characters of Wolverine 2, we talked a little about Liev Schreiber and what his thoughts were on the sequel.

At the time, he seemed not too interested in putting his body through all the physical work again, now that he’s over 40, but he did say that he’s very interested in seeing how the character of Victor Creed goes from how he portrayed him, to what we saw of the animalistic Sabretooth from Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie.

Now, it seems that he’s changed his mindset and is in fact interested in returning to the role.

The folks at Cinema Blend spoke with Liev Schreiber the other day during a press junket for his upcoming film, Taking Woodstock, and touched base with him on what his future may be in the X-Men franchise.

Unfortunately for fans of Schreiber’s portrayal of Victor Creed, the talented actor didn’t sound too enthused about the idea of returning to the role of Wolverine’s brother and arch nemesis. Join us as we discuss what the storyline of Wolverine 2 may entail in terms of characters and what other stories and villains could be introduced.

We’ll be touching on Silver Samurai, Team X, Omega Red and more!

Like it, love it or leak it, there is no denying that the summer of 2009 started off with a bang when X-Men Origins: Wolverine slashed and hacked its way into theaters and into the top 10 grossing movies of the summer. Box Office Mojo currently has it listed at number 8 domestically with $179 million. Combine that with the additional $170 million for foreign sales and is it really any surprise that we are hearing Hugh Jackman talking about a sequel?

About a year ago we told you that Marvel was extending its brand name to the Far East, partnering with Japanimation studio Madhouse to produce four anime films to be released in 2010. At the time there was no official word on which Marvel characters would be getting the ‘animakeover,’ though Iron Man, Spider-Man and The Hulk were early guesstimates.

Well, flash-forward a year later and we finally have a first look at two out of the four Marvel/Madhouse films on the way. The first characters to receive their animakeover? (Surprise, surprise) It’s Wolverine and Iron Man. Check out the teaser trailers:

It’s a big time for comic fans who want to see their favorite characters grace the silver screen. With plenty of major comic book films debuting to widespread success in recent years, it’s no surprise that there are dozens more of these genre films in production or development as we speak.

Some major ones have made big strides in recent weeks, confirming dates and announcing casting decisions, and we expect some more of that soon with San Diego Comic-Con around the corner.

Join me as I try to make sense of a large mess of comic book movie news involving my one of my favorites, Ryan Reynolds (Plus: 2 pieces of awesome fan art!).

Do you remember that rant I went on back in April about the Wolverine online movie leak and later in a subsequent article, when I wrote about Roger Friedman, who worked for a subsidiary of News Corp called Fox 411 for over 10 years, who had reviewed the online work copy of Wolverine and bragged about the ease of how he could abscond with the illegal print.  In fact, he bragged about how he could get a copy of any of the present box-office top-10 films from the Internet.

He was subsequently fired for his part in the process of seemingly supporting this act of copyright infringement.

The folks over at Empire caught up with Canadian star Ryan Reynolds at the London press event for his recent comedy The Proposal where he stars alongside Sandra Bullock and got a little update on his Deadpool project.

Deadpool, the quickly greenlit spinoff to this summer’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is Ryan Reynolds’ dream project where he can finally make what he wished for leading up to his on-screen debut in character as Wade Wilson.

In the wake of the financial success of the recent X-Men spinoff film featuring everyone’s favorite nice-guy Hugh Jackman as the overly nice Wolverine, there’s been plenty of talk, speculation and excitement over what the future holds for X-Men film franchise.

That being said, some don’t want that future at all. Not with Fox Studios anyways…

While X-Men Origins: Wolverine has come and gone as we pass over the opening peak of the summer movie season, there’s a ton to look forward for the X-Men franchise.

As we already know, X-Men: First Class, Deadpool and a Wolverine sequel are all in the works for Fox Studios and their X-Men franchise. Two of which (possibly all three) are spinoffs or will be connected to last month’s Wolverine origin flick. Because of that, what we have for you today is still relevant.

Two weeks ago, we reported that the Deadpool film is being designed to follow the comics closely and that Ryan Reynolds is intimately involved with the process. I’m a pretty big X-Men fan… I’m not a big of what’s happened with the latest X-Men movies however. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was disappointing and X-Men: The last Stand before it was terrible in my opinion.

One of the positives that came from the Wolverine solo flick was the introduction of Wade Wilson, played by none other than Ryan Reynolds who did a fantastic job. The character he played was mishandled in terms of the story and he wasn’t in the film long enough, but the thing it did to right, was help introduce him into the film world and open the doors for another spinoff film that would focus on the character.

Two X-mutants are heading to Mars!

Taylor Kitsch who played Gambit along with Lynn Collins who played Silver Fox in last month’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine have both been added to the cast of the upcoming John Carter of Mars film adaptation based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels.

An X-Men film by Fox that’s just like the comics, you say? Nawwww…

Within a week of the financially (and not so much critically) successful debut of X-Men Origins: Wolverine at the beginning of May, it was officially announced that the long-speculated Deadpool solo movie would in fact be happening.

Before you go any further, you should know that this article isn’t holding back on spoilers from the Wolverine movie.

This week:
Ben Stiller has no time for Salvation at the box office; George Clooney is a Private Gentleman; Lyndsy Fonseca gets into the Hot Tub Time Machine; Milla Jovovich throws a Stone; Ridley Scott looks for a younger Robin Hood and Kevin Costner makes a western – I’m not kidding.

Taylor Kitch who played the Ragin’ Not-So-Cajun in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is stoked about the possibility of returning to his character in the Wolverine sequel.

Rotten Tomatoes caught up with the Canadian actor of Friday Night Lights fame at the Cannes Film Festival and discussed what’s next for the mutant character he portrays. RT asked him about the possibility of him returning in the Wolverine sequel which Taylor surprisingly heard nothing about. He laughingly responded:

In the Wrap Up this week:
The Box Office boldly goes where no Star Trek film has gone before; Joel Silver sees an Apparition; Keanu Reeves Hydes Jekyll;  James McAvoy and Elizabeth Banks have The Details;Val Kilmer, Ray Stevenson and Christopher Walken know The Irishman and Nick Fury is a Pirate.

Fresh off the almost $90 million opening weekend for X-men Origins: Wolverine, Fox is rushing ahead on a similar treatment for Marvel’s favorite mercenary, Deadpool.

If you’re keeping score along at home, a Deadpool movie would be a spinoff of a spinoff of the original big screen adaptations of X-Men. Ryan Reynolds played the wisecracking super gun for hire in Wolverine, and will return in the title role.

Spoiler Alert Below:

As we enter the aftermath of the opening weekend of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the discussions of spinoffs and sequels hit full throttle.

We’ve heard for a while now about the internal discussions at Fox about the many possible films that can branch out from the series so far. These include X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2, Deadpool, X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Magneto and a Gambit solo.

Well, what’s it going to be?

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine having a huge (Hugh-ge?) opening this weekend it looks like Hugh Jackman just might be a legitimate movie star after all. He seems intent on proving this by planning to produce (through his company, Seed Productions) and starring in Ghostopolis.

The supernatural film is currently set up at Disney and is based on a graphic novel by Doug TenNapel.

This week:

Wolverine is Number 1! Keanu Reeves goes to Cartagena; Marcus Nispell captains The Last Voyage of Demeter; we learn about The Pale Horsemen; Jim Carrey likes The Beaver; Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rainn Wilson know Hesher and three more people jump into the Hot Tub Time Machine; And last but not least, The Road finally gets a new release date.