3. Matthew Vaughn (42)
Filmography Layer Cake (2004), Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011). A close friend of Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn began his career in the film business as a producer, producing Ritchies first three films before deciding to take the helm for himself on Layer Cake, a violent underworld film that showcased a pre-Bond Daniel Craig to the public and featured a particularly brutal (and memorable) beatdown scene in a café. Despite the 18-rated nature of his previous body of work, Vaughns second directorial outing was the child-friendly Stardust, a graphic novel that saw him work with Jane Goldman for the first time. She has since become his screenwriting partner on every one of his projects, both directorial and non-directorial. Another graphic novel adaptation followed in the form of Kick-Ass, something that will be receiving a sequel this year, though Vaughn is on board only as a producer. His fourth (and most recent) film was X-Men: First Class, which breathed a new lease of life into the tired X-Men franchise by taking it back to the sixties and featuring Professor X and Magneto as younger men. Vaughn was set to helm the upcoming sequel, Days Of Futures Past, as well, but has dropped out to be replaced by Bryan Singer, though he remains in a producer role for the film, which looks set to feature one of the greatest all-star casts of our time (including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lawrence and Peter Dinklage, to name a few). It would seem that Vaughn now has a penchant for comics, as his next two films are adaptations of The Secret Service and The Fantastic Four, which he will direct and produce respectively.