In an article over at Deadline about 20th Century Fox production president Emma Watts signing a deal to stay with the studio until 2015, the site mentions “Fox has just closed a deal with Matthew Vaughn to come back and direct the sequel to X-Men: First Class“.
Over the past few months it was looking likely that Vaughn would return. In November James McAvoy said Vaughn was already pitching ideas to the studio, and Fox Chairman and CEO of Filmed Entertainment Tom Rothman said getting Vaughn back to direct was a priority. In the past Fox has allowed their directors to escape to other projects (X3 lost Bryan Singer to Superman Returns), so it’s good to know Vaughn has a deal in place to return. The site also mentions that Singer, who produced First Class, will also be back as producer.
Simon Kinberg, who co-wrote X-Men: The Last Stand and co-produced X-Men: First Class, was hired to begin work on the script 2 months ago so they should already have a basic layout for the sequel. Vaughn’s co-writer Jane Goldman said she’s on-board if Vaughn wants her earlier this month, so she will likely be hired to re-write the script at some point.
All the cast are signed following their deals on the first film, so it’ll just be a case of waiting until they have a script ready. One advantage this time round is that they have a lot more time and aren’t rushing to make a release date a mere 13 months away (as was the case with First Class). If all goes according to plan we may be seeing the mutants on-screen again in 2014.
