Fox wants Matthew Vaughn to direct X-Men: First Class sequel

Fox wants Matthew Vaughn to direct X-Men: First Class sequel

X-Men: First Class - James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender Interview

[BlackTree TV - New York] ; Shawn Edwards sits down with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender to discuss their pivotal roles in X-Men: First Class.

EXCLUSIVE - X-Men: First Class Blu-ray announcement | CraveOnline

EXCLUSIVE - X-Men: First Class Blu-ray announcement | CraveOnline

Shortlist of Directors for THE WOLVERINE Includes Doug Liman, Justin Lin, Mark Romanek, James Mangold and More

by Adam Chitwood

Well it looks like the list of contenders for the director of Fox’s The Wolverine has been narrowed down to eight. Following the sudden departure of Darren Aronofsky shortly before filming was to commence, Fox began searching for a replacement for the Hugh Jackman-starred follow-up to Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now, Showblitz reports that the shortlist of contenders for the job is as follows: Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) Jose Padilha (upcoming Robocop remake), Antoine Fuqua (Shooter), Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go), Justin Lin (Fast Five), Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma ) and commercials director Gary Shore.

With a script from Christopher McQuarrie, The Wolverine is largely set in Japan. Filming was poised to take place in that country, but it’s currently unknown if that’s still the plan given the natural disaster that recently ravaged the landmass. Hit the jump for more, including my thoughts on this list.

While none of these choices are as interesting as the prospect of seeing Aronofsky take on a superhero flick, I’d personally like to see either Romanek or Mangold’s take on the material. I found Romanek’s Never Let Me Go to be vastly underrated, and he was poised to take on the beastly character of The Wolfman before dropping out of that film over creative differences. Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma showed his penchant for staging great-looking action set-pieces anchored by intense character drama, and Knight and Day was an incredibly fun and criminally overlooked adventure-flick.

Ultimately, though, this list seems to include directors that lean more toward “eye-candy” material than I was hoping after Aronofsky’s involvement. Lin definitely knows how to stage action but hasn’t really tackled any sort of serious material before, and Fuqua hasn’t made a good film since Training Day (and even that’s stretching it). It’s really just hard to care about this movie if they’re going for a straight popcorn flick, especially after the first film. Hopefully they’ll end up choosing someone who can do something different with the material. We’ll find out soon enough.

http://collider.com/the-wolverine-doug-liman-justin-lin/92937/

42 images from X-Men: First Class show off Azazel, Angel and Emma Frost

Meredith Woerner — X-Men: First Class keeps looking better and better! A new batch of stills from the mutant prequel shows off the red-faced Azazel (Nightcrawler's Daddy), plus plenty of images of Angel and her plentiful collection of mini skirts.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

While January Jones continues to get the most press for her depiction of Emma Frost, we're much more taken aback by Zoë Kravitz's embodiment of Angel Salvadore. It's a new look for the character, and we like it. What else can you spot that's different? This X-Men origins story will be in theaters June 3rd.

[MORE HERE]

EXCLUSIVE: Watch 2 X-Men: First Class TV Spots

The cast of X-Men: First Class
We've got a special treat for you today, True Believers, with two Marvel.com-exclusive new TV spots for "X-Men: First Class," in theaters June 3!

Catch even more peeks at the film which details the early days of Professor X and Magneto's relationship, as well as the formation of the X-Men, in these exciting new spots! James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender bring the young Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr to life in this action-packed journey back to the 1960s as we witness mankind's introduction to the X-Men!

More on Marvel.com: http://marvel.com/news/story/15889/exclusive_watch_2_x-men_first_class_tv_spots#ixzz1MJYNIWa4

X-Men: First Class - Bryan Singer Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

We are ramping up our X-Men: First Class coverage in the run-up to the film's release, and following our on-set interviews with James McAvoy, who plays Charles Xavier in the film, and Michael Fassbender, who plays Erik Lehnsherr, we catch up with the movie's producer, Bryan Singer. The director of the first two X-movies, Singer explains how the volcanic ash cloud helped him find his First Class helmer, discusses the importance of the Hellfire Club to his story, and talks up the possibility of future instalments.


IGN: Why did you decide to make X-Men: First Class?

Bryan Singer: It was initially a title I liked. I knew that there was exploration of doing a movie based on the First Class comic book, but I thought that to earn that or to get there, it would be interesting to go back to the origin of the X-Men. The formation of the relationship and the schism between Xavier and Magneto. And yet I still liked the title First Class because it reflected that concept every bit as much as the comic it's based on, so I just decided that I would pursue that story of young Xavier and young Magneto but retain the title First Class as a sort of beginning of the X-Men and they could go from there.


IGN: So is the plot inspired by any of the First Class story or is it something entirely original?

Singer: Oh, something I came up with just based on... When I made the first two X-Men films, I was conscious of figuring out how to play the relationship between Magneto and Xavier and I was always very conscious of what their past must have been. What their friendship was like. So that back-story was always playing in my head whenever I was discussing scenes with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. So this was a chance to finally go back and explore the history that was always bouncing around in my mind when I was making those other movies.

IGN: How is Charles and Erik's relationship at the start of this film?

Singer: I think that because of their mutual respect for each other's intelligence and powers, they are attempting to build a friendship, but they both come from completely different backgrounds. Xavier is very privileged and wealthy and as a result a bit naive and a bit idealistic. Whereas, Magneto is a product of the holocaust, he's hell-bent on vengeance, and his view of humanity and his hope for mutant-kind is seen through a much narrower prism. They both care for the same things, but in this movie you see the different ideologies fermenting.

IGN: We talked with both James [McAvoy] and Michael [Fassbender] about their characters being like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in their approach to human and mutant rights. Were you thinking that when you came up with the story?

Singer: Absolutely. That was what attracted me to the X-Men many years ago... that relationship. Two people who want the same thing want to achieve it in very different ways. Nobody wants misery and failure for themselves and the people around them, but sometimes in pursuing prosperity, that can happen if it's not done in the right way.

MORE: X-Men: First Class - Bryan Singer Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

X-Men: First Class - Havok Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

Lucas Till is best known for his roles in the Hannah Montana movie and Battle: Los Angles. This summer he'll be making the move into superhero flicks as Alex Summers, aka Havok, in the forthcoming X-Men: First Class. IGN visited the set late last year to sit down with the young star to discuss everything from superpowers to X-Men chat-up lines. Here's what he had to say...

And BEWARE OF SPOILERS ahead.

Lucas Till as Alex Summers/Havok

IGN: Have you always been a fan of the X-Men?

Lucas Till: Well I never read any of the comics but I grew up on the animated series when I was a little kid - I guess it came out in 1992. So I've always been an X-Men fan.

IGN: Can you tell us a little about who you play in the movie?

Till: Alex Summers, and his superhero name I guess is Havok. I'm Cyclops' younger brother so I can shoot plasma beams out of my entire body instead of just optic beams.

IGN: So is Alex in control of his power?

Till: Just like Scott can't control his power without glasses or a visor on, historically Alex has never been able to control his power either, so it's always been outbursts with a lack of control. In the comics he has a suit that absorbs excess energy but it was more like a meter that would tell him how much power he has, whereas in this one I have something that channels it because I can't control it myself. So I have a chest-piece that focuses the ray so I don't blow my team-mates up.

MORE: X-Men: First Class - Havok Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

X-Men: First Class - Mystique Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

Jennifer Lawrence rocketed to fame with her Oscar-nominated role in Winter's Bone, which she followed up with an equally excellent performance in the recently released The Beaver. This summer sees her try her hand at a big-budget blockbuster, playing Raven Darkholme in X-Men: First Class. The shape-shifting mutant who becomes better known as the villainous Mystique, Lawrence plays her as the good girl before she turns bad, and IGN caught up with her on-set late last year to discuss the evolution of her character.

X-Men
Mystique with the rest of the X-Men: First Class team.

IGN: Is starring in a superhero movie an antidote to the seriousness of Winter's Bone?

Jennifer Lawrence: I actually was thinking of it that way. Not this movie specifically, but kind of thinking about doing something a little lighter. I wouldn't call it an antidote, but I was definitely looking forward to it.

IGN: So tell us about your character.

Lawrence: Raven, or Mystique, is a shape-shifter and when she is in her natural, blue, scaly, red-haired form she also has super-human agility. She's young, and she's a normal teenager dealing with insecurities, but her insecurities aren't that normal. She's insecure about being a mutant, but she slowly grows to accept it and evolves into herself and starts to love it.

IGN: Are her powers fully formed in the movie?

Lawrence: She's been shape-shifting for a long time, but she's just recently learning about her superhuman agility. She discovers that in the movie.

IGN: What's it like to play a mutant?

Lawrence: It's completely different, but fun. You don't want to do the same thing every time and I do feel like I'm at the opposite end right now but I'm having a blast. It's a fun character to play, in a fun movie. We've got cool sets and I'm really loving all the special effects, because it's so different to Winter's Bone - I'm like a kid in a candy store.


MORE: X-Men: First Class - Mystique Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

X-Men: First Class - Banshee Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

Caleb Landry Jones made a cinematic splash as the creepy kid in last year's horror hit The Last Exorcism. He's tackling a very different kind of role in superhero prequel X-Men: First Class this summer, playing Sean Cassidy, who becomes better known as the sonic screaming Banshee. IGN exclusively interviewed Jones on the film's UK set late last year, and we talked about everything from cracking skulls to becoming an action figure.

IGN: How did you get the role of Banshee?

Caleb Landry Jones: All I knew was that it was the X-Men. I thought, 'What the hell are they doing auditioning a redhead? OK, I'll do my best.' I got the part and it's been brilliant. I've never been overseas - I've never been to Europe - and so that's amazing by itself. To be on a movie with such magnitude as this one is just absolutely amazing. I'm getting a chance I've never had before in my life. I'm getting to fly, which I've always wanted to do. I'm playing a superhero, which I've always wanted to do. Don't look like Spider-Man, don't look like Batman, so it's fantastic that there's one that I do look like, kind of.

Banshee
The X-Men: First Class team, with Caleb Landry Jones on the far-left.

IGN: Tell us about the character.

Jones: Well he's got a supersonic scream. He learns how to fly in this movie. He learns how to melt objects. In the beginning all he really knows is how to break things - car doors I'm guessing, things like that. And he's got selective hearing.

IGN: What does he do with his scream?

Jones: What's the technical way of saying it? I'm trying to think of Hank [McCoy]'s line when he explains it to me. He causes the sound waves... something about vibrations... I don't know the science behind it, but he can blow sh*t up and cause skulls to crack.

IGN: Do you get to do all that this in the movie?

Jones: Everything except the skull cracking. It's a PG-13!

IGN: How familiar were you with the X-Men when you got the role?

Jones: I'm much more familiar now that I've done some reading. I wasn't very familiar in the beginning - I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid what with Wolverine saying 'Punk' and things like that. I couldn't watch the show. I was really into Batman, but not X-Men as such. Although now I've got a full booklet - it's like 500 or 800 pages of just Banshee comics.

MORE: X-Men: First Class - Banshee Interview - Movies Feature at IGN

New X-MEN: FIRST CLASS Trailers Are Awesome

If you can get over the continuity worries and the concern that it’s a prequel, and perhaps some of the acting on display, there’s very little wrong about the latest set of trailers for X-Men: First Class. I love the play with history, the JFK voiceover and the weaving of these characters into such a huge event in America’s past that brings with it so much more depth and resonance than the usual comic book movie. My mind has been racing tonight at the thought of what could be in store for us.

Read more: http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/movie-news/new-x-men-first-class-trailers-are-awesome.php#ixzz1KoJ9E88b

Duncan Jones On Wolverine Rumours

The director on Mute, Moon and Logan
Source: IGN Movies
By: Phil de Semlyen

As anyone who's seen Source Code will testify, Duncan Jones has made the transition from indies to big studio fare look very easy indeed. Other directors who've made the journey - Alex Proyas, Richard Kelly et al - will admit that it isn't as straightforward as Jones' action/thriller makes it look, A-listers, pyrotechnics, CGI and all.

So what's next? When the Moon man stopped by for a webchat he was as cagey as you'd expect for a man on the cusp of great things, but still those Wolverine rumours kept surfacing. So would Jones's next project have adamantium claws?

"Who knows what'll be coming up next - I have a lot of meetings and catching-up to do when I get back to LA," says the director, who's since confirmed that one of them would be with 20th Century Fox to talk Logan. "[Wolverine is] more interesting to me than Batman," he told IGN at this weekend's Kapow! "A good Wolverine film could be an amazing thing." Yes, it's vague but it does sound like Jones is a strong contender for the berth recently vacated by Darren Aronofsky. Watch this space.

His Blade Runner-homaging sci-fi Mute, meanwhile, is inching its way to fruition. Its first incarnation will be as a graphic novel, with Jones plumping for the tried-and-tested route of winning studio backing to bring his story to the big screen. "I have some meetings set up to start discussing how the graphic novel will come together," he explained, in between sharing his passion of homegrown comic books and explaining what happened to his Judge Dredd pitch.

"My preference would be to do a 2000AD character, which is why I got very excited about Judge Dredd. But unfortunately I had such a strong idea of what I wanted to do with that that it wasn't going to mesh with the very strong script that they had. Maybe I'll get another shot one day, or maybe I'll get the chance to try one of the other characters from Britain's sci-fi bible."

We're thinking a Jones-directed Rogue Trooper could be fairly awesome. So what of Sam, GERTY and the Moon world? Would we see them again on our screens in years to come? Click here for more on that and the Duncan Jones webchat in full.

Source Code is out now. See it, then see it again differently eight minutes later.

Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool movie gets a director

Visual effects maestro Tim Miller is taking the reins
By Matt Maytum

After an irksome amount of to-ing and fro-ing, Fox have finally found a director for Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool spin-off, with visual effects whizz Tim Miller landing the job.

Miller has worked on comic-book movies including X-Men, X2 and Daredevil, so he's no stranger to the superhero scene. He also worked on Scott Pilgrim's extremely nifty VFX, which is promising for offbeat anti-hero Deadpool.

The character, AKA Wade Wilson, AKA the Merc with a Mouth, had a few minutes of scene-stealing screen time in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, before being offed by Wolvie in the film's climactic moments.

This new outing will apparently stand independent from Wolverine, and the script, by Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, will apparently see the mercenary return to his comic-book roots, which means we should be in for tons of anti-heroism and fourth-wall breaking.

The path from VFX guru to director isn't always a smooth one (we've all tried to forget Alien vs Predator: Requiem), but perhaps a fresh approach is what's needed to give Deadpool the edgy adaptation he deserves.

It's not yet entirely clear when the film will happen, although with a director now hired, Fox are obviously moving forward with the project.

Reynolds' rival superhero movie, DC's Green Lantern, is out this summer, and depending how it fares, he could be roped in on sequel duties for that one.

He's also shooting paranormal cop thriller R.I.P.D. this summer, so perhaps Fox would be looking to slot Deadpool in after he has completed work on that one.


Read more: Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool movie gets a director | TotalFilm.com

Hugh Jackman: 'The Wolverine' knocked back, but not dead -- EXCLUSIVE

By: Anthony Breznican
From: http://insidemovies.ew.com

When Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky backed out of The Wolverine a little over a week ago, it left the promising comic book drama in the lurch.

Part of the anticipation for the film, in which Hugh Jackman’s X-Men character ventures to Japan and encounters a legion of samurai warriors, was having the provocative tendencies of Aronofsky channeled into a commercial action-adventure movie. Jackman himself has been bulking up, gorging on protein and working out to build muscle, in anticipation of the project’s start. Then Aronofsky said he could no longer commit to the project because the Japan shoot would interfere too much with his personal life.

Jackman says he’s not quitting now.

The actor was in Las Vegas for CinemaCon, the annual convention for theater owners, to reveal the first scenes of his upcoming robot-boxing drama Real Steel. (More on that film in an upcoming Inside Movies post.) After the presentation, he told EW that The Wolverine remains very much alive — he’s staying on board, and the script by The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie is still in play.

“So now we’re out looking for a director,” Jackman shrugged. “We were pretty much ready to go. The script is fantastic — the best we’ve ever had, which is why it attracted Darren in the first place. His personal situation precludes him from doing it now, and I feel for him. But now we need to find a director.”

Jackman wouldn’t cite any preference, but said the team is aiming for another prestige filmmaker, not just someone to yell “action” and “cut.”

“We’re not going to settle. We’re going to find a director as good as Darren, if not better. Well, as good,” Jackman said. “Everyone is still pushing forward to getting it done.”

The actor did acknowledge a little impatience, especially since he’s growing weary of his protein-powered, muscle-building diet. “I can’t be eating too many more chicken breasts,” he groaned.

Darren Aronofsky No Longer Directing The Wolverine

Darren Aronofsky and Twentieth Century Fox today issued the following statements about the director's involvement in the movie, The Wolverine.

Stated Aronofsky: "As I talked more about the film with my collaborators at Fox, it became clear that the production of 'The Wolverine' would keep me out of the country for almost a year. I was not comfortable being away from my family for that length of time. I am sad that I won't be able to see the project through, as it is a terrific script and I was very much looking forward to working with my friend, Hugh Jackman, again."

Stated Twentieth Century Fox: "While we are of course disappointed that Darren can't do 'The Wolverine,' we also understand and respect his reasons. Having done both 'The Wrestler' and 'Black Swan' with Darren, we know he is an extraordinary talent and we look forward to working with him on other projects in the future. Hugh Jackman and Fox both remain fully committed to making 'The Wolverine.' We will regroup and move forward aggressively.

Read more: Darren Aronofsky No Longer Directing The Wolverine - ComingSoon.net http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=75358#ixzz1IsCgMlIx

SHN proudly presents Hugh Jackman, in Performance at The Curran Theatre

SHN proudly presents Hugh Jackman, in Performance at The Curran Theatre for a two week limited engagement May 3-15 in San Francisco. Hugh Jackman will perform his Broadway and Hollywood favorite musical numbers backed by a 17 piece orchestra.

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X-Men: First Class - Official Trailer

The trailer is finally here!!


I don't know about you guys, but I'm really looking forward to this.