From ew, And now for some news that will make you drop your coffee mug to the floor in slow motion: Bryan Singer is returning to X-Men! According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fox has confirmed that the The Usual Suspects director will be back to take on the next installment in the blockbuster series.
This is a smart move. The first two X-Men movies, helmed by Singer, adhered to the golden rule of superhero franchises, namely that the second film will be better than the first. Cleverly, Singer hoped to avoid the other golden rule, that the third film will suck eggs, by hop-skipping from Marvel to DC and making Superman Returns. (But he forgot something key: Returns is meant to follow Richard Donner’s Superman II , a superior super-sequel, making it technically the third film in that series. Nobody but nobody escapes the curse.)
Like someone who just went through a bad breakup and is willing to hook up with anyone with a pulse, Fox hired Brett Ratner to do the X-Men: The Last Stand, which many fans believe ended up blowing more than one of Storm’s hurricanes. So, both humbled and willing to give the relationship one more shot, Fox and Singer are back together to work on a prequel titled X-Men: First Class that will follow the lives of the mutants as teenagers. Which means we might be seeing an awkward Wolverine at prom, Mystique’s poorly attended Sweet 16, and Toad frantically applying Clearasil to his first wart. Honestly, I’m interested as long as they hire new, younger actors and stay away from that creepy anti-aging CGI used to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look like evil CPR dummies.
I actually believe that bringing Singer back to create a whole new storyline within the same universe is a good way to mix the new with the proven, and it might go far in helping this series rise like a Phoenix Saga from the cold, wet ashes Ratner left behind. My only suggestion: Somehow use the theme music from the animated series. That stuff is amazing.
