Fox wants Matthew Vaughn to direct X-Men: First Class sequel

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TWENTIETH Century Fox has officially confirmed plans for sequels to its summer hits X-Men: First Class and Rise of The Planet of The Apes.

Tom Rothman, co-chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment, says they hope to get Matthew Vaughn back for another X-Men instalment and Rupert Wyatt to continue the Apes storyline.

"Both of them were really great scripts and so we have to be sure to get great scripts again," Rothman told ComingSoon at the Gotham Independent Film Awards. "We're working hard on the scripts for both of them, but we have every hope of moving forward with them."

Rothman's public statement signals the studio's determination to build on the critical success of both films.



It was recently revealed that Simon Kinberg, a producer on First Class, is crafting a script for the follow-up.

James McAvoy, who played the younger Professor Charles Xavier, said that Vaughn has some "fantastic" ideas for the next movie. The actor is keen to show how his character copes with the life-changing events at the end of the first film.

McAvoy told io9: "I would definitely like to be in the sequel, but the truth as well that I'm bound to be in the sequel by a contract that says we do three films. So if Fox decides we're doing it, then I don't have a choice.

"But I would still like to, I had a great time with Matthew and Michael, that was a great threesome to work with and really sort of carve out a new beginning for those two characters. So hopefully we'll have the same kind of joy on the set.

"The good thing is, I don't think Fox is rushing into it just because it did well. They want to make sure they get a good script, because if you can't get a good story there's no point in doing it. It can be a standalone film if we can't figure out a good story."

He added: "Matthew has come up with a particularly interesting idea, last time I spoke with him. So he's pitching that to Fox, and they've basically just got to write the script.

"I don't know where we find Erik - it's kind of defined at the end of the film that he's a bad guy. I can't really speak for him, but I know that with Charles, you either have to write him out of the movie or give him an interesting story. He can't just become the guy that we saw in the first three movies. He just had two major things happen to him. He's lost his best friend, essentially, and he's just been paralysed from the waist down. Which is just a huge, huge blow to his considerable ego. So he's got to deal with that.

"And I don't think we can just brush over that and go 'Yeah I'm in a wheelchair now.' You've got to deal with that, I don't care if he's a superhero and has brain powers or not, he's just had a huge part of his physical life taken away from him, by someone he cares about more than anyone else.

"That's part of the interesting ideas that we're talking about with Matthew [Vaughn], that Matthew's very excited about which I think is fantastic, but I can't really get into them because they may (or may not) form the spine of the story."

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