We haven’t heard anything about X-Men: First Class since it was announced that Gossip Girl writer/creator Josh Schwartz would be writing the script, so I was pleased to read that Schwartz made a few comments about it during an interview with MTV. Obviously he can’t reveal anything, but what he did say was telling.
“No, that’s not true,” Schwartz told MTV News when asked if he passed on directing “X-Men: First Class,” as some rumors suggested. “But I would be terrified to have the first thing I direct be a giant franchise movie.”
While Schwartz was careful not to reveal any details about the film’s plot, its place in the current “X-Men” film franchise, or just about any other aspect of the project, he did offer up some thoughts on what it won’t be.
“The ‘Dark Phoenix’ storyline is probably the high point of the comics’ storytelling,” said Schwartz when asked about some of his favorite X-Men stories. “But they did that. So we’ll find more fertile soil somewhere else.”
“I’m not really allowed to say anything,” he added. “They’re watching me as we speak. It’s exciting, it’s a huge honor and we’re just getting started.”
The fact that Schwartz has thought about doing the Dark Phoenix storyline is reassuring. It shows that this won’t be just ‘Gossip Girl meets X-Men’ and they will actually be taking serious storylines from the comics.
At the current rate of Fox pumping out X-Men films it could be the case that we won’t get to see this until 2012, although IMDB has the release date at sometime in 2010. My main interest at this point is who Fox will get to direct, however we probably won’t get that info for a while.
