This is one of those ideas I’d say is very bad but at the same time, it’s pretty damn cool.

Everett Bradford put up a YouTube video to demonstrate what he calls “The Prometheus Device” and since then, it’s been popping up on geek and tech sites all over the web.

The device emulates what we see from the character of Pyro in X-Men 3: The Last Stand, sans his power to manipulate the fire once launching it out of his palm. Check out the demo video for the neat-but-incredibly-dangerous device below.

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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.

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…

There’s been plenty of talk about the future of the X-Men franchise in recent times leading up to and after the financial success of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to kick off the summer of 2009. That hefty $85 million opening weekend helped push a Deadpool spin-off for Ryan Reynolds into motion as well as the early development of other spin-offs, prequels and even a sequel to the X-Men trilogy. That’s right, an X-Men 4 is in the early stages of planning.

In addition to the speculation of future installments to the franchise, there’s been buzz about the return of one of the folks responsible for helping kickstart the live-action series of X-Men films, Bryan Singer. We know that he’s interested and that X-producer Lauren Shuler Donner is too. But just how realistic is it?

As of this morning, it seems much more likely that this will come to fruition…

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!

Rob Liefeld, the creator of the Deadpool character of Marvel comics was twitter-happy last night, updating fans about some news regarding the upcoming Fox Studios film, X-Men Origins: Deadpool.

He started by mentioning that he’s on his way to a big meeting about the Deadpool movie and then his following four tweets got interesting, making some needed confirmations and suggesting some cool stuff we may see down the road.

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?

Hey gang, yesterday John Campea of TheMovieBlog.com was kind enough to invite me to be a guest on his Movie Blog Podcast. John’s podcast is the longest-running movie podcast on the net (and the third oldest ongoing podcast, period).

Also on the podcast was TMB regular guest Christina Warren of Mashable.com and FlickCast.com. Here are the topics we covered:

• Jennifer’s Body
• Edward Norton claiming no cameo in Iron Man 2
• X-Men: First Class casting
• Nic Cage leaving Green Hornet, and the mess that movie seems to be in

We were going to cover a couple more items but we had so much fun just with those above that we ran out of time.

You can download it directly here or you can head over to The Movie Blog to listen to it (but do come back and tell us what you think!).

I’ll be doing another guest appearance on a well-known movie site’s podcast soon!

The X-Men franchise has proven itself to be pretty much unstoppable so far with four financially successful films in a row, and talk of half a dozen more.

Even if they make a film with unfinished special effects, script issues, major leaks, bad critical response and a split fanbase, the movie will still bring in the crowds interested in seeing some of their favorite heroes on screen… even if they don’t match the characters they’re based on, who they came in to see.

With that in mind, there are many films Fox Studios has in development for the franchise but it’s been difficult deciphering which will come first… Could it be X-Men: First Class?

Have you ever wanted to look deep into the dark recesses of a comic book movie director’s mind – nay – heart? You don’t have to look much further than the interview StarPulse.com recently held with director Brett Ratner. The Q&A session was mostly a junket to build hype for Ratner’s upcoming film The Shooter Series, but also touched on Beverly Hills Cop 4 and his thoughts on comic book fans, and it’s that last part I want to focus on.

There are sites out there (that we are most certainly friends with and fans of) that regularly rip Ratner and his films a new one. So I’m going to preface this article by saying that if you search Screen Rant you’ll find that while we may not be his biggest fans, we haven’t jumped on the “‘Brett Ratner sucks’ bandwagon” in our coverage of him or his films.

David Goyer has been talking up a storm recently. With his fame growing massively after the success of The Dark Knight, which he helped write, he’s been talked about for plenty of other projects in development, most related to comic properties.

Recently, he gave some insight into the future of the Blade franchise and revealed some details on the upcoming Super Max film which would follow DC Comics’ Green Arrow character incarcerated in prison with supervillains for a crime he did not commit.

One project that Marvel fans are looking forward to however, is that of a solo film for Magneto which would tell the story of the character’s origins before the events of the first X-Men film, similar to this summer’s Hugh Jackman-starrer based on Wolverine. The mutant character with the power of magnetism was made famous on screen thanks to the acting of the talented Sir Ian McKellen, but from the sounds of it, he’d likely be played by a younger actor this time around, no doubt with a cameo from McKellen though.

It would appear that X-Men: The Last Stand didn’t just leave a bad taste in the mouths of fanboys – it also soured the taste buds of director Brett Ratner as he has said that he isn’t particularly interested in returning to helm any new films starring the mutant superhero team.

Although, having said that, there are some films that he might be interested in tackling and they do feature a few of the original X-Men.

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…

Yesterday Screen Rant reported that director Bryan Singer is interested in returning to the X-Men franchise, six years after directing X2. Today we have another member of the X-Men team, Anna Paquin (who played Rogue in the first three movies), showing interest in doing another X-Men movie as well – in this case, the upcoming X-Men: First Class.

Those hoping for director Bryan Singer to return to the X-Men franchise can sit up and take notice: Singer has said himself that he would “love” to make a return to the franchise! Those are certainly words that fall gladly on X-Men fan’s ears.

In a recent interview with Total Film, Singer was asked about how he feels looking back on his time making the X-Men movies and if he wished he’d stayed on for the third one. He then revealed his interest in going back to the franchise:

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.

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:

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?

They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage!  Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.

During one of the many press events for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in recent days, MTV had a chance to catch up with Ryan Reynolds, who plays the character Wade Wilson in the film.

In their brief interview, MTV asked him about what other mutants he would like to see Deadpool face-off against in his own spin-off feature film. Reynolds responded:

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening in a mere few days, there’s plenty of talk surrounding the X-Men franchise, sequels and spinoffs. Most of that talk centers around X-Men: First Class, the next X-project on the Fox’s development slate.

Two weeks ago, we found out some more details regarding X-Men: First Class where it was revealed that it would be another prequel tied into the X-Men movies that we’ve seen so far and not its own separate franchise that would hopefully follow a more accurate continuity from the comics.

Most blogs and movie news sites out there reported the news but none really explored the idea of who would actually be in the movie. In that report, producer Lauren Shuler-Donner discussed X-Men: First Class:

Professor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and the school for gifted children, plays a part in the newest TV spot for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Patrick Stewart, who plays Xavier in all of the previous X-Men films, lends his voice to narrate the ad and help tie the Wolverine-centric prequel into the rest of the franchise. I wonder if he’ll do the same for the upcoming X-Men: First Class film? I find it difficult to imagine someone else playing the role. Perhaps they can use that de-aging technology that they employed for X-Men: The Last Stand.

SCI FI Wire spoke with producer Lauren Shuler Donner over the phone last week to promote next Friday’s opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and they took some time to discuss several other projects that are in development for Fox Studios, including the Magneto spinoff and X-Men: First Class.

The first question was simply asking for a status update on X-Men Origins: Magneto for which Shuler Donner responded (responses below edited by SCI FI Wire):

Less than a month before the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine comes news that another spin-off from the lucrative X-Men franchise is going to be yet another prequel.

When X-Men: First Class was first announced, many thought that it would follow the adventures of the younger mutants from the high grossing franchise. Now Lauren Shuler-Donner has given details on what to expect from the film – if Wolverine hits it big at the box office.

Today, the brand new official trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine has hit the internet (click on the link to check it out).

In short, it’s good but not great. I find it rather disorganized and slow for the first half as much of it is simply rehashing what we saw in the first full Wolverine trailer. The second half however, is pure action and it makes up for it. The one thing this trailer does do right is showcase much more of the central mutants that many fans care about, notably Gambit, Deadpool and Cyclops – the three characters I’ll focus on here.

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.

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!