Posted on: December 17th, 2009 Bryan Singer to Direct X-Men: First Class
You read that right, X-Men and X2: X-Men United director Bryan Singer will return to helm the next Origins project, X-Men: First Class.
Flickchart seemed to be the first to tweet the news from Avatar’s LA premiere last night. While interviewed on the blue carpet, Singer said:
I’m prepping up to do a movie called Jack the Giant Killer [at] Warner Brothers, and I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men First Class Origins picture, which is kind of cool.
You can watch the director’s confirmation via the Ustream archive video below (thanks to Slashfilm):
Though I had harsh words for the direction of the franchise, specifically with a younger, teenage X-Men origins story, having Bryan Singer on board can’t be a bad thing and has raised my interest level quite a bit. There’s no doubting Singer’s interest in the franchise and property itself, I just hope that this time around he truly gets the creative freedom to explore the X-Men universe; he came awfully close to perfection with X2.
Back in April, Fox suit Lauren Shuler Donner described X-Men: First Class as:
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.
Take from that what you will, but Singer’s back.