Geoff Boucher got to ramble around the X-MEN: FIRST CLASS set yesterday, and hear about Matthew Vaughn’s anxiety about getting it finished, and James McAvoy’s take on playing Prof. X and so on.

“We’re filming at the moment, we’ve a lot to get done,” said a weary Vaughn, whose credits include memorable but modest-grossing indie fare like “Kick-Ass” and “Layer Cake.” “I’ve never worked under such time pressure. The good thing about the independent world is I never even knew if I was going to get distribution. I’m used to finishing a film and then crossing your fingers that someone is going to like it. This is totally doing it the other way around. We’ve definitely got a release date and we’ve got to make it.”

And some overview from producer Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men films:

The plot of this film is still under wraps, but it presents a world where superpowered mutants are living in secret and don’t face the public scrutiny and prejudice that are central themes in the earlier films, which are primarily set in the modern day. The friendship of future foes Xavier and Lehnsherr is the heart of the film — Singer says the two have a common cause and different approaches and he even used the life trajectories of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as a sort of shorthand for their veering paths. Despite rumors to the contrary, Vaughn said the movie will be the first X-Men film without the most famous face of the franchise, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and key characters such as Cyclops, Storm and Jean Grey give way to new screen arrivals such as Emma Frost (January Jones), Azazel (Jason Flemyng), Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and Havok (Lucas Till).

And there are PICTURES, which unlike yesterday’s leak, are officially sanctioned.

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Here’s the whole cast, looking particularly…not like they are from the 60s.

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Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw and January Jones as Emma Frost.
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McAvoy as young Xavier and Eric Fassbender as young Magneto.

These stills definitely look like a Marvel movie, although there are no white wifebeaters in sight. Will there be a scene including that “duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh” urgent music that accompanies all lab scenes? Maybe it will be Dr. Moira MacTaggert this time? Did we mention January Jones?

1 COMMENT

  1. That first picture looks like they’re from the 60s to me.

    Admittedly, it looks like ’68, ’69 or so, rather than the 1963 that the X-Men debuted in. It looks like they’re trying for a period feel that looks simultaneously retro-trendy today.

    I like it.

  2. I’m not getting a 60’s vibe at all here. I’m also not getting a “this looks awesome” vibe. It looks more like a bad TV show on WB.

  3. Did I read that right – no Cyclops? That seems particularly weird for an X-Men: Year One story. So does the inclusion of Azazel, a character no one could possibly have wanted save for Chuck Austen, author of the much-derided run in which he appeared.

    The visuals here intrigue me a bit, though. Interesting casting, too.

  4. @Dave – If you make calculations, it makes perfect sense. If Cyclops, Jean or Storm appeared in this movie, they would be too old to appear as 30-ish adults in the first trilogy, right?

  5. I have faith in Vaughan, in everything about this except…January Jones. I am skeptical that she has anything near the chops or screen presence to pull off Emma Frost. So far, JJ’s strongest suit is that she looks amazing in 60s outfits. We’ll see.

  6. Is this the first comic book movie Kevin Bacon has ever been in?

    Then the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” has just gotten that much easier! :-P

  7. “Wait. Emma appeared in Wolverine’s solo film, and she was a teen / pre-teen when Scott was a teen.”

    I think the retcon for that is that was just a girl named Emma who had diamond form powers. The X-Men movies have been full of things like that, like multiple Kitty Prydes and Hank McCoy in non-mutant form in X-Men 2.

  8. I think this is the Marvel movie I;m most looking forward to. Reboot set in the sixties for a property they could just have easily done a sequel or present-day reboot for? Plus it is being described as having only “some” action? Gutsy. Who cares about continuity, this is a movie. Can’t wait.

    Sadly, it coincides with Matt Fraction leaving X-men. A public thank you Matt — you finally wrote for the 30something X-men nerds in a smart (San Francisco!), awesome (X-Club) way…and finally brought back Fantomex. You made mutants cool again. You will be missed.

  9. @Julián – I don’t know how far back the movie’s supposed to go, but if the characters were thirtysomethings in Singer’s first movie and the idea’s to show them in their teens, can’t you just subtract, oh, about fifteen years from everyone’s age for their First Class portrayal? The thirtysomethings are shown in their late teens and Xavier, who was what – fiftysomething? – ends up in his mid-30s.

    That works, right?

  10. The picture of Magneto in his helmet is not included, and that one looked amazingly ridiculous. I do have faith in Vaughn, but no faith in 20th Century Fox, although I remain optimistic. And January Jones is killin it, visually at least, in the pics I have seen so far.