Singer's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is a little STAR WARS prequels-like?

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

Bryan Singer's first creative decision back at 20th Century Fox is to throwout The O.C. and Chuck creator Josh Schwartz's script (as I said yesterday, lipstick and superpowers, dear lord!) for some muscle - by hiring writer Jamie Moss (Street Kings) to help shape X-Men: First Class, say The Hollywood Reporter. Ironically, Singer's frequent collaborator Chris McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, X-Men and Valkyrie) was hired by Fox four months ago to write Wolverine 2 and is too busy with that particular X-Men department to return here for Singer. A drawing from X-Men: First Class, the comic series revolving around the early days of Cyclops, Beast, Iceman and more, of which this film shares the same name and concept only. Kinda weird how it all works out because I was under the impression that Singer was desperate to work with Hugh Jackman again and with McQuarrie on board, why didn't he jump to that ship and direct that movie where Wolverine could actually play a part? He must have something particularly in mind for this adaptation. Sadly for us, it sounds a lot like a George Lucas prequel move. "OH, wouldn't it be a good idea to see how Anakin Skywalker fell out with Obi-Wan Kenobi and became the dark sith lord Darth Vader!" That kind of good idea...

The story is still in the early stages of development but will deal with the first meeting of Charles Xavier and Magneto and involve the creation of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, the school masquerading as the headquarters of the X-Men.

Which will probably mean X-Men Origins: Magneto is a dead duck movie because it was basically the same idea. So it's the friendly friends Magneto and Xavier, played by younger actors, of course, who somewhere along the way of this movie (or future sequels) become arch enemies when there philosophies on how mutants should relate with humans begin to differ massively, and at times, dangerously. We can expect a friendship betrayal, the beginnings of a relationship between Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey, Xavier becoming crippled and well, that's all I can think of really. How exciting, and bloomin' unnecessary eh? How much time, effort, money wasted on this when they could be prepping X-Men 4 and actually continuing to movie this franchise forward! All these prequels are just delaying a series that actually has to move forward if it wants to survive. It's already been overtaken by Iron Man and Batman in recent years, and once Green Lantern and Captain America comes round, and most definitely The Avengers - the X-Men series will sure start to feel a little underwhelming if it carries on it's current path.