New X-Men: First Class Image Surfaces as Team Faces New Threat - Katherine Heigl
Posted 03.02.11 by Ryan
In January, Kevin Bacon described the various set designs for the upcoming X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class with Moviefone. Bacon plays wealthy villain Sebastian Shaw, who heads a secret mutant society called the Hellfire Club.
I've got some pretty nice pads and I'm kind of slick in that way. The set design is fantastic. I've only seen the sets that I've been on and they are really interesting and very '60s modern and super cool, and beautiful. I have one set that's kind of like an inner sanctum and then I also have a submarine; the inside of the sub has elements of my other set. I have my own set of style and wanted to translate it over to my board room and stuff.
The latest First Class image shows one of those sets, an icy blue hall of mirrors, one that contains Bacon and First Class co-star January Jones as mutant telepath Emma Frost. Bacon referenced the set in his Movieline interview by saying, "we do have a really, really super cool scene in a hall of mirrors and that's going to be really spectacular." The picture seems to be before anything "spectacular" happens, but it's exciting to think of what danger could occur, isn't it?
Speaking of dangers, The Playlist reports that First Class will face a new threat when it opens on June 3 — Katherine Heigl's latest movie One for the Money. Originally scheduled for a July 6 release, where other comedies were scheduled to open, Lionsgate has moved the movie to go up against First Class, likely assuming that while X-Men will mostly appeal to men, One for the Money will appeal to those women that don't care about costumed superheroes.
The Heigl vehicle has a lot of appeal: based on the first of a series of novels by popular author Janet Evanovich, One for the Money follows an unemployed woman named Stephanie Plum who gets a job as a bounty hunter for her bail bondsman cousin. Lionsgate is hoping for the movie to become a franchise, with sixteen novels in the Stephanie Plum series already. Lionsgate hired Julie Anne Robinson to helm the movie, hoping the long-time TV director will know how to create a movie that audiences will came back in later sequels.
It's a bold scheduling move by Lionsgate, but the problem, besides First Class, could be Heigl. While Heigl broke out in 2007's Knocked Up, her four movies since have not fared as well at the box office, with 2008's 27 Dresses and 2009's The Ugly Truth succeeding more overseas than domestically, and 2010's Killers and Life as We Know It making less than the previous two, with Life as We Know It just barely eclipsing Killers. Heigl's movies aren't box office bombs exactly, proving that audiences will show up for a Heigl movie, and, clearly, Lionsgate believe they have something special in One for the Money by making it compete with a potential summer blockbuster like First Class.