X-Men: First Class Sequels Being Discussed by Studio?
Posted 07.05.11 by Ryan
Despite earning $335 million in worldwide box office, Twentieth Century Fox has yet to officially announce a sequel to this summer's X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class. The Coventry Telegraph reports, however, that the studio is "discussing sequels internally."
This is good news for X-Men fans, because, despite how fans felt about the prequel, First Class was easily the best X-Men movie since 2003's X2: X-Men United. In late May, director Matthew Vaughn admitted that he would "definitely" like to return for a sequel, revealing that a mutant connection to the JFK assassination was one of his possible sequel ideas. Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and X2 and producer of First Class, said in early June that a First Class sequel could "could inhabit a whole world of the 20th century," including the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
If the "internal discussions" turn out to become sequels, fans will be delighted, but nothing is official yet. First Class opened in the U.S. to poor numbers compared to the rest of the franchise, despite opening in first place for the weekend, but ultimately earned decent box office numbers overseas. Fox may be trying to figure out a way to either take advantage of the overseas fanbase or appeal more to the domestic side.
Either way, we're not sure what the hold-up is since some movies become sequelized with even less success than First Class. For example, 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra earned a sequel from Paramount after only earning $100 million worldwide, despite the movie costing $175 million to make (not counting advertising). And, unlike First Class, G.I. Joe did not have a previous track record of successful movies to help propel a sequel. Still, that was then, and in the summer of 2011, First Class has been outperformed by sequels like Fast Five and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, neither of which were released by Fox. For the record, Fox's contributions to the summer movie season outside of First Class have been Mr. Popper's Penguins, and monte Carlo. Penguins has barely earned back its budget, while was buried amongst the rest of the movies that went up against Transformers: Dark of the Moon over the holiday weekend.
First Class was set in the '60s during the Cuban Missile Crisis and followed the early days of friendship between Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), which led them to be on opposite ideological sides in the X-Men trilogy. The movie is expected to arrive on DVD and Blu-Ray in October and will reportedly include 13 deleted scenes.
The next X-Men movie is likely The Wolverine, which having finally(?) eliminated its director issues by hiring James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma), starts production in October.