Ilan Eshkeri to score X-Men: First Class

Ilan Eshkeri to score X-Men: First Class

According to XMF Ilan Eshkeri is in final talks to compose X-Men: First Class for Mattew Vaughn and 20th Century Fox. Eshkeri has worked with Vaughn before on Kick-Ass, Layer Cake and Stardust, so this news was expected. Eshkeri has also composed the scores for Ninja Assassin, Hannibal Rising and The Young Victoria, so he has range when it comes to crafting music.

Each of the X-Men films has had a different composer which has resulted in the X-Men not really having a theme or continuity with the music. Spider-Man had the ’swinging theme’. Batman has Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard doing their thing, so I think its about time the X-Men got a theme.

You can listen to some of Ilan’s work [MORE]

Jane Goldman brought in to rewrite X-Men: First Class | Filmonic

Jane Goldman brought in to rewrite X-Men: First Class | Filmonic

As with most directors Matthew Vaughn likes to work with the same people. He has used Ben Davis as his cinematographer for all of his films, as well as composer Ilan Eshkeri. Another member of the Vaughn team is Jane Goldman who co-wrote both Stardust and Kick-Ass.

Last week we heard from Thor writers Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller who had been working with Bryan Singer on the latest draft of X-Men: First Class, so it seemed the scripting side of things was pretty much sorted. However, a recent tweet from Goldman’s husband suggests otherwise.

From Jonathan Ross’ (UK TV/radio host) Twitter:

G;night all. The wife is away writing X Men 4 so I am off to bed with little Sweeney alone

Also, for those who need to know, my wife IS currently writing X men First Class. It’s just referred to as X men 4 around the house…

I am afraid I better not answer any more queries re X Men First Class for fear of spoilers and also possible divorce. Thank you.

On May 5th Ross tweeted saying that his “wife has just taken on a big new exciting movie. So I’ll be doing the cooking for the next 10 weeks. Wish the kids luck…”. All of this suggests that Vaughn has brought in Jane Goldman to rewrite X-Men: First Class with him, which is pretty cool. As a duo they work well together (both Stardust and Kick-Ass have 76% on Rotten Tomatoes) so it is looking likely that we will be getting an above average X-Men movie!

No word on whether Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller still have script writing duties, or whether Jane will now be taking over as head writer. What we do know, however, is that 20th Century Fox is giving Vaughn creative freedom. With X-Men 3 and Wolverine Fox gave the writers notes and they had to form a script around them (hence the suckage), but now it seems Vaughn and Bryan Singer are in control of the story with Fox just providing the funds. I hope that’s the case anyway.

With filming expected to begin in less than 2 months time we can expect casting news over the upcoming weeks.