5 Directors Who Could Save The X-Men Franchise From Mediocrity

With a title like X-Men: Apocalypse, you'd assume that the ninth movie in the franchise would take the audience to the brink of cataclysm – but truthfully, it never really gets there.

Sure, there's plenty of destruction and panic throughout (most of it caused by Magneto dramatically lifting stuff to the sky), but longtime X-Man Bryan Singer's direction seemed pedestrian, and as a result, the movie suffered.

Apocalypse marks Singer's fourth time directing for the franchise, so it's natural he'd struggle for freshness. Perhaps now is the best time to step away, though oddly, he's now expressed interest in directing another X-Men film with the original cast in the future.

Singer has done all he can do for this franchise - and there was lots of good - and he needs to step aside and allow someone else the opportunity to sit in the director's chair.

With another sequel already basically confirmed to place in the 90's, let's pretend that Singer is officially out, and the search for a new director will start after the movie is announced. So who will step up and save the X-Men from another dose of mediocrity?

Currently, the First Class director is busy working on other non-X-men related projects, but Fox would be smart to keep him in the mix regarding future endeavours.

After all, it was Vaughn's inherently flashy style that resurrected the franchise after The Last Stand and X-Men Origins threatened to flatline it.

In addition to his dynamic visuals, Vaughn also has an innate talent for gratuitous, over the top violence (i.e. Kick-!*$% and Kingsman: The Secret Service). While he managed to tone it down for First Class, that ability should make Vaughn a front-runner if Fox ever decides to go through with a Deadpool/X-Men crossover.

And he's already shown with First Class that he knows the characters, the spirit of the comics and how to spin a great story. Having been ousted for Days Of Future Past, he deserves another shot.