Last summer’s X-Men: First Class breathed some necessary life back into the superhero franchise, thanks to a stylistically cool film, an up-and-coming cast, and some generally energetic direction from Matthew Vaughn. While I don’t think anyone was particularly worried about Vaughn coming back to helm the film’s inevitable sequel, Deadline Warsaw has gone ahead and confirmed that Vaughn is indeed on to direct, with Bryan Singer back to produce.
Their post also confirms that Simon Kinberg is set to script the film (news we’ve known about since November), which will likely be the film’s greatest hurdle, as Kinberg has yet to impress me with films like Jumper and the first Sherlock Holmes. Next up, he’s got two projects coming out that I cannot even remotely gather interest in – This Means War and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He also helped script X-Men: The Last Stand, which was decidedly not good, but at least he has familiarity with his characters. Paired with Singer and Vaughn, who both have great affection for the franchise, this next X-Men could shake out just fine.
It’s suspected that all of the original cast will return, thanks to multi-picture contracts. Basically, give me James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender again, and we’re all good.
As a side note, /Film points out that this news continues to distance Vaughn from the chance to direct that Kick-Ass sequel he’s been jawing about for years, which may not be a bad thing (and I say that as a Kick-Ass apologist).