It looks like 20th Century Fox will be continuing the X-Men franchise not just with solo spin-offs. The studio signed Josh Schwartz this week to write X-Men: First Class to bring the franchise to a younger generation.

Josh Schwartz is the creator, writer and producer of the television shows The OC, Gossip Girl and Chuck and this will be his first shot at developing a project for the big screen. You can probably guess who the target audience will be.

The film will undoubtedly follow (at least in some way, shape or form) the general idea and story from the X-Men: First Class comic book which Marvel debuted in 2006 as a mini-series, later continued as an ongoing series. The book follows the original five X-Men (for the most part) in their teens working for Professor X as it was when the X-Men comic began back in the 60’s.

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The guys over at Latino Review put their peepers to good use picking out this little tidbit buried in the many movie titles recently announced on Production Weekly: X-men: First Class seems to be the next film in the series going into production!

El Toro over at Latino Review has posted new pictures from the set of the upcoming X-men Origins: Wolverine, from a scene that looks to be set during WWII???

Now, as any fanboy worth his adamantium knows, Wolverine’s mutant-healing factor has the added effect of slowing down his aging process to a crawl. Various storylines in the comics have hinted that Wolvy could be as old as 100, leaving the filmmakers behind Origins a lot of history to play with. And, If these photos are any indication, this film is aiming for a scope much more epic than originally thought. Let’s just hope it doesn’t stretch itself too thin by trying to do too much. Save something for Wolverine 2!

In the meantime, take a look at the pics and let us know what you think.

Source: Latino Review

We all knew that Hugh Jackman was in it. And we’d heard that Liev Schreiber would probably be playing Sabretooth, but other than that news has been quiet on the X-Men Origins: Wolverine casting front.

Until now.

First up, Joblo is reporting that Danny Huston, son of the legendary John Huston has signed up to play William Stryker, the character previously played by the great Brian Cox in X-Men 2.

IESB states that Lynn Collins, who has starred in such quality films as 13 Going on 30, The Number 23 and The Lake House will be starring as Wolverine’s love interest Kayla Silverfox.

AICN is stating that fan favorite Ryan Reynolds will be playing Deadpool, apparently a cameo that will lead to his own spin-off film.

Meanwhile, Empire magazine is saying that Taylor Kitsch from TV’s Friday Night Lights has snagged the role of Gambit, a character that X-Men fans have been waiting to see on the screen since before the birth of Christ (well, Mel Gibson’s screen version at least).

There are also reports that The Blob will make an appearance in the film. The character will be huge, so HUGE in fact that he will be a combination of an actor in a fat suit and CGI. Yes you read that correctly.

So what does all this mean?

Okay, X-Men: The Last Stand wasn’t good. Considering how great the first two films were, the third was woeful in comparison. While most people tend to blame Brett Ratner, I blame the suits at Fox.

Ratner isn’t a bad director, in fact I quite like him, he knows how to make a good popcorn flick, and his stab at a Hannibal Lecter film was much better than Ridley Scott’s. Yes, you did read that correctly.

The Last Stand was ruined by a release date and Fox’s wish stick a finger up at Bryan Singer, who bailed from the franchise to direct Superman Returns (a film that I really like).

Now that the money grabbers at Fox have realized that it’s just too expensive to continue with the X-Men franchise in its original incarnation, they’ve apparently decided to milk the cash cow my going straight to DVD with a series of origin films.

Not a big piece of news but - hey - it’s not about Justice League, so that’s gotta be a bonus right?

Discussing the planned 2009 X-Men spin-off Magneto, writer/director David S. Goyer has revealed budgeting and location scouts for the film have begun, with the plan being to set the story in Europe and Argentina. What struck me as interesting was that he also mentioned the plot will revolve around “the origins of the X-Men with Magneto and Charles Xavier.”

So, then, which is it? A Magneto film or the origin of the X-Men? Could fan concerns about a stand-alone Eric Lensherr film have caused a rethink? Do I smell the distinctive scent of backpeddling?

According to Superherohype.com, after having won the People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Female Action Star” Halle Berry was so pleased that fans like her “Storm” character so much that she told them if they really want X-Men 4 to be made, it’s up to them.

Here’s what she said:

“You guys really love X-Men? Ok, here’s what you have to do. Write letters. Every one of you in this building who love X-Men and want to see X-Men 4, write a letter to Tom Rothman at Fox and tell him so and you will get another one, and I’ll be there too.”

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Much like the popcorn I ate while watching, it was kind of tasty but not very satisfying.

OK. First things first… I have to give props to Brett Ratner for stepping into this X-Men film at the last possible moment and putting it together in an insanely short amount of time. It was barely a year between the time Ratner came onboard and the movie showed up at your local multiplex. I still don’t know how they managed to do it.

Right here is where I wanted to say “And now for the bad news…”, but really it’s not so much bad as it is tepid (you know, lukewarm).

Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine during filming of X-Men 3. The original image can be found here. I’ve tweaked the image a bit to make it look better.
I’m still dumbfounded that the release date for this thing is scheduled for release only 9 months from now. That is truly insane.

Ben Foster, who played a pencil-necked geek in The Punisher and a psychotic in Hostage has been cast as the winged mutant “Angel” in X-Men 3 according to Variety (so it must be true).

So far the insane release date of May 2006 is still the target.

Just thought you might like to know.

Thanks to Movie Tab for the heads up.