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.

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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:

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:

Click to continue "What Students Are In X-Men: First Class? (Not Gambit)"

More info: gambit, wolverine, x-men, x-men: first class

Everyone’s favorite director, Brett Ratner, recently went on a bit of a rant to MTV News, talking about how he would love to direct more comic book movies, if only there were still some of the ‘best heroes’ to go around.

Now, I know what a lot of you are already thinking–but at least take a look at what the man had to say before you go ripping into him, please.

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.

This weekend I wrote about the first official picture of Gambit from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and now we have several new photos from tha film that have appeared online for our viewing pleasure. There are five in total and are all live shots from scenes in the film.

If you got a chance to see the low-quality leaked footage of the teaser trailer featured at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con, these may look familiar to you as they are all directly taken from scenes shown during that trailer.

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!

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.

Avi Arad was interviewed by MTV and spilled his guts on more projects than I really believe will make it to the big screen. There’s really no point to rehashing it here, there’s a nice summary over at RopeofSilicon.com.

He mentioned X-Men 3, Magneto, Wolverine, Ghost Rider (vs a giant tidal wave ), Spiderman 3, Captain America (think: Back to the Future), Silver Surfer, Thor, Punisher 2 and Iron Man.

Sounds like on Iron Man a complete script rewrite is being done by Nick Cassavetes, who has met with Arad several times to discuss the film.

Much more info at the link above.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately… I was sick for a while and to be honest this is the first thing I’ve felt like writing.

SuperHeroHype.com has scooped the first (of many, I’m sure) poster for the upcoming film X-Men 3: Death of a Franchise. (So I kid).

It courageously lists the release date as May 26th, 2006 even though the (horrid) script probably still isn’t locked down and they’re not supposed to start filming for what, another 2 months?

It’s insane, I tell ya. Don’t big special effects superhero movies take at least two years to complete? I shudder at the thought of X-Men 3 as a completed film, I really do.

On the poster a website is listed: www.xmen3themovie.com, which at the time of this writing leads to nothing but an empty page. You’d think they could at least put the poster in as a placeholder…

Click on the image above for a larger version of the poster.

Source: SuperHeroHype.com

In an interview with MTV, Brett Ratner tried to assuage the fear that X-Men fans have over his taking over the upcoming film.

To his credit, he is at least aware of the negative buzz and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing. During his interview he actually said (concerning the brutally murdered Batman franchise):

“I’m not Joel Schumacher, and I’m not … um … who did the third Superman? I’m Brett, and all I know is what I know, what I can do and what I have to work with.”

So he knows what’s on the line and what can happen when things go terribly wrong.

Then there’s a bit more hopeful news:

What started out as panic among fans when Bryan Singer left as director of X-Men 3 and then turned into hopeful expectation with the arrival of Matthew Vaughn, can now revert to pretty much hopelessness over X3 being anywhere near the level of the first two films.

Since Joss Whedon would only be interested in directing a film that he has written (and he’s supposedly working on Wonder Woman now, anyway), he isn’t on the short list of potential directors.

According to Aintitcoolnews the studio is deciding between Brett Ratner and John Moore, and is leaning towards Ratner.

Wow.

Just like that, it seems Matthew Vaughn is off X-Men 3 and Joss Whedon might be up to bat as director.

According to Aintitcool.com they have confirmation straight from Avi Arad that Vaughn is off X-Men 3. There was no reason given except to say that it was not due to creative differences and that Matthew was “heartbroken”.

And on Joss Whedon’s Blog there’s a post talking about the possibility that Whedon might be the new guy.

Nothing confirmed on the Joss Whedon side, of course.

In an out of the blue yet inspired decision, Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier fame) has been cast in the role of Beast in X-Men 3. To me this is as out there as when Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton in the role of Batman.

Of course despite the outcry at the time, that actually turned out rather well.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Beast is a mutant member of the X-Men (duh) who is genius-level intelligent with a HUGE vocabulary and happens to look like, well, a beast. In the comic he’s covered in hair, super agile and is sort of ape-like in appearance. Really he’s more of a short, squat character but Bryan Singer got away from that with the Wolverine character and casting of Hugh Jackman and it didn’t seem to hurt the role much IMO.

Here’s a quote from Avi Arad according to Variety:

“This is a big role in the new movie, and when we met with him, you can see that Kelsey has that you’d-better-have-a-dictionary-handy intelligence…”

Personally I think that if he can bring his “Frasier” personality to the role (minus the neurotic part, of course) he’ll be awesome.

I’m feeling too lazy to write up three separate articles, so here’s a quickie.

Yahoo! Movies has the teaser trailer up for the new Zorro movie coming out this fall. Catherine Zeta-Jones(-Douglas?) is back as is Antonio Banderas. I enjoyed the first one for what it was and the trailer for this one looks fun as well.

Chud.com has an update on the remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog. Sounds like maybe it will be more intense than the original? BTW, Carpenter is onboard as a producer.

IESB.net caught Avi Arad in a parking lot and got him to spill on a few things, including the fact that a Silver Surfer movie is next and that the first X-Men spinoff will indeed be the Wolverine movie.

Finally, it’s being reported all over the place that the script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie is finally done. George “CGI” Lucas is going to give it a read and give it the gladatorial thumbs up or down.

There was a Marvel, Inc. financial conference call today and a number of tidbits were mentioned by Avi Arad that relate to upcoming superhero-based films.

Since I’m a big fan of Iron Man, I was disappointed to hear that the movie has been pushed back to a 2007 release at the earliest and is in fact now considered TBD (to be determined). Avi confirmed that Nick Cassavetes’ leaving the project was not Nick’s decision, but was due to New Line executives having an issue with him being chosen as the director. At least they’re still moving ahead with the animated version of Iron Man which I believe is a straight to DVD title.

Avi stated that the new distribution agreement they’ve struck with Paramount will give Marvel more control over it’s films moving forward, and that will keep issues like this from arising. I, for one am happy to hear that Marvel will have more control over it’s own properties on the big screen. When they license a property to a studio, they lose creative control over the product.

It sounds like Captain America and Nick Fury are first in line to be produced, as they were referred to as “tentpole movies”. Interestingly, “The Avengers” was also mentioned in the same statement, although I don’t know of any plans to turn that into a feature film (there is an animated Avengers cartoon in the pipeline, however).

Other items:

Click to continue "Wolverine Movie to be Rated R?"

Anybody heard of a movie called Layer Cake before last week? Me neither. All of a sudden it seems like it must have been a great movie with which to have been involved.

Within the last week not one but two folks from this film have been thrust into the movie news limelight:

Director Matthew Vaughn is set to direct the highly anticipated X-Men 3 and (supposedly) Daniel Craig is one of two guys left vying for the role of James Bond in the soon to start filming Casino Royale.

Another “big movie” Layer Cake connection is Tamer Hassan who has a minor role in Batman Begins, although granted, that’s a stretch since it’s a bit part.

We should probably stay on the lookout for anything J.J. Connolly might be involved in, since he wrote the screenplay…

Click here for a new Iron Man fanboy happiness update!

Things seem to be moving ahead on Iron Man. According to IGN FilmForce, the studio is sending the script out to directors who can get production going early next year.

Apparently in earlier drafts of the screenplay, the villain was going to be Iron Man’s longtime nemesis The Mandarin (this was news to me, I hadn’t heard it until today). Instead, the villain in the film will be Howard Stark, the military industrialist father of Tony Stark (who, for those of you who don’t know, is the man under the tin suit).

I’m not sure how I feel about this… it might be a good thing. Unless they decide to put Howard Stark in a suit of armor (which would be a really bad idea) I can see a variety of technological weapons/devices developed by the elder Stark being what Tony (as Iron Man) must combat. Either that or a gang/army of “red shirts” in (hopefully) inferior suits of armor. We’ll have to see how it shakes out.

Early on in the development process it was revealed that Iron Man’s origin will be “completely different” in the movie than the Vietnam War-era version presented in the comics. Previous Iron Man screenwriter Miles Millar advised Wizard Magazine that Tony is “not really in touch with where his money comes from, unaware that his wealth lies from weapons, and that history comes back to haunt him. … It’s a great arc for a character to begin with, this selfish reckless playboy, that in the end becomes a hero.”

In the last couple of days the major news services have picked up on the “Bryan Singer wants Tom Welling to play Superman” rumour.

It seems that this rumour may be just that: a rumour.

One of Garth Franklin’s (of the DarkHorizons.com movie news site) sources sent him the following:

“Thought I’d drop by some info on everyone’s favorite superhero and what’s going on at Warner Bros. As you know I’ve had some dealings with the studio and can put straight some recent rumors. Tom Welling has not been offered Superman by Bryan Singer. Singer wants an unknown in the lead role. Trust me when I say Tom Welling will not be the next Superman. I’m not sure how that rumor came about but it’s bogus.”

Seems like Halle Berry is done playing superheroes who have limited speaking skills (BTW, this photo is one of the few I could find from Catwoman that I’d consider appropriate):

“After playing Storm in ‘X-Men‘ and now Catwoman, I think my comic book hero days are probably over.”

“That’s unless I was lucky enough to play Catwoman again. I would love to do that. But other than that, I think I’ve pretty much done it.”

I just find it amusing that she’d be willing to play Catwoman again… I mean it was so much fun and empowering for her. It’s irrelevant that Catwoman has only earned $31 million worldwide so far and it cost $100 million to make. Maybe they’ll make another one just to keep her happy…

BTW, both X-Men movies were wildly successful despite her presence, not due to it.

I think it would be a bonus if they kept her off of X-Men 3. Then again, there’s no guarantee it will be any good now that Bryan Singer has signed on to do Superman.

Source: SuperHeroHype.com

I’m becoming seriously convinced that there’s some sort of Oscar curse. I mentioned in a previous article that Charlize Theron was gearing up to make some very bad post-Oscar choices, but she’s hardly alone. As long as I can remember, it seems that once you win an Oscar, you immediately end up in career purgatory, from which few people are able to successfully emerge.

Latest case in point: Halle Berry. Her highly-praised role in Monster’s Ball made her an Oscar favorite, and as we all know, she walked off with the coveted statue. The problem is, she hasn’t done anything worthwhile since then. Okay, she starred in the X-Men sequel, but she is well-known as the weakest link in that series. Her character, Storm, contributed so little to the plot and had such lame one-liners that I wondered why she was even in those movies. Her latest movie, Catwoman, sounded promising at first. Halle slinking around in tight leather… I can think of worse things in life. The problem is, that’s the only appeal the movie has. Critics have almost universally panned this movie, citing a terrible script and lousy casting. (Sharon Stone, who hasn’t had a major hit since Basic Instinct, plays the villain.)