With the releases of Thor, X-Men: First Class and Hitler-punching Captain America, Marvel superheroes are dominating theaters this summer. Already Thor has made more than $400 million worldwide (in just five weeks, mind you), and while First Class had a disappointing opening weekend, overseas sales will likely put it in the black. Will that be enough to secure a sequel? Hard to say. But the film’s producer Bryan Singer is already pondering the possibilities.
Singer, who has a “story by” credit on First Class, recently spoke with the LA Times, and explained that as this film was firmly rooted in the fevered paranoia of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a sequel would be likewise embedded in its historical surroundings.
“I don’t know if every movie has to be a history lesson. But there’s a lot of history to cover. If we sequelized this, it could inhabit a whole world of the 20th century… When [‘First Class’] happened, Kennedy had not been assassinated and the Vietnam War hadn’t happened yet….[But] what’s really interesting about the ’60s setting is the civil rights movement.”
He went on to detail how Magneto and Professor X’s dueling ideologies could fit nicely into the a Civil Rights storyline, expanding, “What’s fascinating about these two characters is that they’re really the Malcolm X and Martin Luther King of comic mythology.”
Personally, I found First Class’ Cuban Missile Crisis elements interesting if sloppily integrated into the plot. But if Singer steps up his involvement, and pursues the Civil Rights focus, I think a sequel could prove compelling. Besides the fact that I’d gladly line up to see more Fassbender/McAvoy chemistry, this is a theme that Singer took on beautifully before in the best-regarded film of the franchise: X2. Of course continuing on this prequel road could get confusing cannon-wise, but let’s see what the final box office receipts say for First Class before we get too far ahead of ourselves.
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In other news, Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, who each earned writing credits on Thor and First Class, (where they were two of five and two of six writers respectively), are being jettisoned into the world of scripting disaster films – and by that I mean in the vein of The Poisedon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, not Wolverine.
According to Deadline, the pair just signed a six-figure deal with Skydance productions to write the proposed action flick, and have pulled in another six figures for selling a pilot to 20th Century Fox. So, it’s been a good week, despite First Class’ middling box office debut. While little is being released about the Skydance film or the pilot at present, we do know Miller & Stentz – who previously penned and produced on Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles — are currently revamping The Fall Guy, the stuntman-centered Lee Majors series, for Imagenation. So basically, these boys are workin’ it.
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And finally, a curious note on the Wolverine sequel/spin-off/one-off because no matter how putrid the first one was it still managed to pull in $300 million worldwide. Since Darren Aronofsky – fresh from Oscar acclaim – dropped directing duties on The Wolverine, a strange range of directors have been rumored to be in pursuit of the project, from Moon‘s maverick Duncan Jones to Bourne Identity’s kinetic action director Doug Liman, to Furious 5’s Justin Lin to…Mark Romanek the director of the poetic and bittersweet soft-sci-fi love story Never Let Me Go.
While I loved his last film, I found his inclusion on this shortlist confounding, and as it turns out – so did he. When confirming for Digital Spy that he would not be helming The Wolverine, Romanek explained:
“That’s just one of those stories that floated around. I was on their list, I received the script months ago. It didn’t seem like my kind of thing….That script was a terrific version of that kind of thing, but not something I felt really passionate about.”
So, Romanek is out, presumably leaving some interesting directors to take on whatever this is going to become. Hugh Jackman is still attached.
That’s it for Marvel related news today. What do you think of Singer’s sequel pitches? Are you intrigued by Miller and Stentz’s disaster flick? Who would you like to see take on The Wolverine? Sound off in comments.