X-Men Origins: Wolverine proved that people haven’t tired of X-Men franchise just yet as it has made $350 million worldwide, and we already know that a Wolverine 2 is in the early stages of development, as is a Deadpool spin-off. But what about X-Men: First Class and X-Men Origins: Magneto? At one point back in 2007 director David Goyer was scouting for locations to film Magneto, but then the writers went on strike and work on the film stopped. 20th Century Fox focused all of their attention on Wolverine while David Goyer worked on other stuff such as The Dark Knight and The Unborn. Then we got word in October last year that Josh Schwartz had been hired to write the script for X-Men: First Class, which would revolve around Xavier’s first students at his School for Gifted Youngsters.
As it currently stands 20th Century Fox have three X-Men films in development and a spin-off, so which will come first? And in what order? SHH got the chance to speak to David Goyer and he explained what the current thinking at Fox was:
“There have been some preliminary discussions,” he told us about Magneto, adding, “I think, at Fox, they’re trying to decide if making a young X-Men film makes the most sense next, does making a ‘Magneto’ make the most sense next. They’re just trying to decide internally who’s next up.”
Wolverine 2 and Deadpool will come whenever they are ready, but Fox are deciding whether X-Men: First Class or X-Men Origins: Magneto should come first. Early drafts of the Magneto script include a young Charles Xavier who meets up with Magneto on his travels, so would it make sense to show Xavier and Magneto’s origins, then show Xavier setting up his school in First Class? Or do they set up First Class and then show how it all began? If they want do to things in order Magneto would come first. But X-Men Origins: Wolverine has shown that you can go back in time and still have a hit without confusing the audience.
Whatever they decide I just hope they get them right. I think it’s fair to say that the X-Men franchise peaked back in 2003 with X2, but with the money still rolling in will Fox continue to pump out so-so X-Men films or will they hire an X-Men version of Christopher Nolan to give the franchise a kick?
