Bryan Singer returns to direct X-MEN: FIRST CLASS!

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

Bryan Singer got the deal he was hoping for, but maybe not the one I think comic book movie fans wanted. Singer's back in at 20th Century Fox - signing the contract yesterday to direct X-Men: First Class, an origin movie of the Marvel comic book franchise he first brought to film ten years ago. That's great! I'm so happy to see Singer back after the two loons Fox hired to direct the non-two Singer X-Men movies but I can't help but feel that the deal we wanted him to make was for an X-Men 4 - Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn et all. A movie that could have brought the original colourful comic book costumes to the series (we are more sophisticated to comic book movies now than we were in 1999, so it would look fine) and fixed the problems and Brett Ratner left the series with back in 2006. Singer's association with the X-Men franchise always felt unfinished after the tremendous X-Men 2. I'm so glad to see him return. The X-Men franchise should have the greatest longevity of all the comic book franchises and it's a travesty it died a death at only three movies with so many compelling stories left untapped. The situation the damaged characters were left in after X-Men 3 deserves to be explored some day, and I sincerely hope the franchise will continue down that path instead of all these prequels and flashback stories. The deal for X-Men: First Class is the one Singer had been talking to Fox about for the best part of four months and had wanted to direct ever since Warner Bros. started making moves away from any sequel to his 2006 Warner Bros/DC comics movie Superman Returns. Fox themselves had warmed back to Singer (they never really wanted him to leave the series anyway) after the mixed audience reaction to X-Men 3: The Last Stand and the even less liked X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Singer, clearly looking delighted, announced the deal yesterday on the red carpet for the L.A. premiere of Avatar screening. He does mention that the movie won't come until he has directed Jack the Giant Killer, a dark fantasy re-telling of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale he became attached to at Warner Bros. this summer.

According to previous quotes from producer Lauren Shuler Donner, X-Men: First Class is to follow the early years of the Professor Xavier Institute...

So it€™s young Scott, young Jean, young Beast and that€™ll be really fun. I think (the plan) is to follow some of the characters into their own stories, and weave them back into the X-Men world. And hopefully First Class will become its own franchise and we can follow them as they grow up.

Last November it was confirmed that Josh Schwartz, the creator of Gossip Girl and The O.C had been hired to write the script for X-Men: First Class, kind of hinting towards the good-looking, romantically tormented, hormones running high, lipstick and superpowers version of these characters.