Bryan Singer says he wants to return to the X-Men franchise. Of course he does. While Singer has several projects lined up — a potential Excalibur remake/update, that Battlestar Galactica feature, and what should be his next, Jack the Giant Killer — the director now says he’s interested in going back to the superhero franchise with which he had such success in X-Men and X2. But what does that mean for the series? Read More »
The great thing about a sequel is that it has a built-in audience. The problem with sequels is that, as the numbers after the title go up, so does the production budget. Very hard to know for sure, but sources have told me that the production budget for X-Men was in the $75M range. X-2: X-Men United may have had a budget of about $110M, while the cost of X-Men: The Last Stand was, in all likelihood, as much as $210M. Why doesn’t it make sense to just churn out X-Men 4?
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Josh Schwartz, the creator of Gossip Girl, Chuck, and The O.C., let it slip that he’s currently working on the screenplay for the next X-Men film, a prequel/spin-off of sorts. The film will center on the other teenage characters attending the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.
“I’m very well aware that I’ll be bludgeoned by purists, but I love its mythology, and it comes with a pretty hefty paycheck,” Schwartz told Black Book Magazine. “It’s not like I’m adding new characters like Toaster Head, or anything like that. The Hulk looks like it’s going to be terrible. And why does he look like he’s fighting against the monster from Cloverfield? I mean, with Transformers, it’s not like fans were going to come back saying, ‘You used the wrong car.’ This, however, is a different story.”
Schwartz also admits that hack director Brett Ratner “didn’t have a lot of credibility going in to the third X-Men movie,” (is this supposed to be to his defense?) and that “Bryan Singer got a free pass on Superman Returns because of his work on X-Men.”
But the question is: Can the guy who created Gossip Girl write a good superhero movie?
