Specialty B.O. Preview: ‘Before Midnight’, … 
2012-2013 Season Network Rankings: CBS Sweeps In Final … 
Full 2012-2013 TV Season Series Rankings 
TOLDJA! Paramount Pocketing $190M From Disney For Marvel … 
‘Good Morning America’ Hits 19-Year Viewership … 
MGM Buys ‘Modern Family’ Producer Ben … 
‘Fashion Police’ Writers Chant On Picket Lines: … 
Universal Makes Seven-Figure Deal For ‘The School For … 
Steven Soderbergh Will Interrupt Retirement To Direct And … 
Cannes: EOne Announces Itself As Player In U.S. … 
Will LIN TV Stations Go Dark On Time Warner Cable? 
Very Crowded Memorial Weekend Kick-Off: ‘Hangover … 
Shareholders Quiz Time Warner Chief On Political Ties And … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Modern Family’, ‘Law … 
Hammond On Cannes: Paramount’s ‘Nebraska’ … 
Cannes: J.C. Chandor Sets Next Project ‘A Most … 
Hannibal Classics Sets Cast For Nic Cage Pic … 
Hammond On Cannes: Robert Redford’s Brave New Role … 
Hot Trailer: Jennifer Aniston And Jason Sudeikis’ … 
Brad Pitt’s Plan B Banner Promotes Jeremy Kleiner To … 
Hot Trailer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ‘Don … 
While many in Hollywood are having trouble finding work these days, Bryan Singer’s problem is there is only one of him to go around and everybody wants him. So Singer and 20th Century Fox have formalized his move from director to producer on X-Men: First Class. That is the bad news for X-Men die-hards who love the first two films Singer directed. Here’s the good part: he is leaving because Fox liked the script that Jamie Moss wrote from Singer’s treatment so much that the studio wants the film right away, envisioning it as the first leg of a trilogy. The hope is to have it ready for 2011 release.
Singer will join Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg as producers. He’s not available because Warner Bros and Legendary are locked into a summer production start on Jack the Giant Killer. They’ll begin casting shortly. It is a big CG project, and they are likely to either shoot 3D or convert it later.
Last December, Singer agreed to direct the First Class prequel after the studio sparked to his detailed treatment, with the studio knowing full well Singer would likely make the other movie first. The willingness to wait changed when execs flipped for Moss’s script. He’s now honing the origin story that focuses on Xavier and Magneto and offers similar opportunities that JJ Abrams took advantage of to resuscitate Star Trek. 
Fox is short-listing directors and has talked to several. Perhaps sensing the momentum and worried Singer might get booked for First Class passage, Warner Bros and Legendary were quick to lock Singer into an iron-clad deal on Jack the Giant Killer. After all, it was they who got the director to do Superman Returns when Fox didn’t close him fast enough on X-Men 3. That move singed Singer’s relationship with Fox until they kissed and made up with First Class.
Fox hasn’t definitively set this as the next X-Men project, but why replace Singer for any other reason? Fox did get a strong draft of a Wolverine sequel from Christopher McQuarrie, and while there is no director, production could start in the fall when Hugh Jackman is free from the Shawn Levy-directed Real Steel. Fox also has new versions of Marvel Comics franchises Fantastic Four and Daredevil percolating. My bet is First Class starts production in summer or early fall, when Singer will be off slaying giants of his own.
Loading ...
Honestly, how more idiotic can FOX possibly be? They flip over a treatment that Singer wrote with the intent to direct, but because they see dollar signs they decide to move on making it without the director that wrote the outline so they can shoot it out faster. Shouldn’t they know by now that in the long run there is more cash by having the best filmmakers in place? All for what, waiting an additional few months? Give me a break!
FOX, I would like to point your attention to a little studio down the street called Warner Brothers and their treatment of the Batman franchise and the Nolan’s.
Idiots.
Brian Singer is a ho-hum director who makes Ho-hum movies. I can’t say the X-men films were bad, but I sure wouldnt rave about them to anyone.
His one film I’d rate above average? Yeah I saw it. Since then most have been mediocre to just plain boring.
Ho-hum to awful. After his turn on Superman he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a super hero movie.
Bryan Singer isn’t popular just because of movies he’s directed. He is also one of the major producers of the TV series House, which is one of the best medical dramas ever IMHO, and is apparently a powerful person to have in your producers lineup.
Wanted to see this with Singer as director. Now i won’t bother, x-3 and wolverine origins sucked.
I guess fox was not happy enough with rushing x-men 3 and ruining the trilogy so they have to ruin the prequel as well.
Who are the clowns running FOX? A hit with one movie out quickly instead of a mega-hit franchise because of quality and fan support must be plasterd on the front door at that moronic studio.
Yeah those clowns at FOX! Those clowns who produced Avatar.
Avatar was all Cameron. FOX had no say except for money. FOX execs are idiots.
and avatar was all copied and unoriginal
Avatar was great and being the first of its kind I’d say it was original. Learn your movies.
what does that have to do with Avatar’s success? so what if it was unoriginal, it was still well told and worth watching. if ur gunna bitch about originality then u should be aware that not much is original in hollywood these days
Whoever said Avatar was copied and unoriginal seriously needs to stop even… I don’t even know what to say, I mean the fact that you could be so stupid is beyond me.
the first of its kind? the ferngully? dances with wolves? pochantas? any of those movies sound familiar? ya i know hollywood is pretty unoriginal these days but avatar didnt even try i mean come on even the protagonist had the same initials. sure it had some cool effects but nothing far from what weve already seen or that wont be trumped in a year or so. the movie was worth a watch but certainly nothing more and probably the most overhyped movie of all time.
on topic i like the x-men movies but they stray a little to far from their sources some times. especially wolverine origins. however im very excited for the xavier/magneto movie
*same initials as the guy from pochontas that is
Avatar… original? More like Dances with Wolves II. Just sayin
Avatar may have been a FX heavy Dances with Smurfs… but seriously, it was the first film since the first, first Star Wars that just left me with my mouth open with amazement. Certainly worth the ticket price and certainly audiences worldwide left satisfied… unlike many other films I could think of…
I really hate it when I hear people comparing Avatar to Dances with Wolves, Ferngully, and Pocahontas. You know why? Because you don’t understand why the correlation between these film’s story structure exists. You dumbly assume that one copied off another off another, but fail to notice a thing about history (Like the fact that Pocohontas was released after Avatar’s first treatment and is thus irrelevant) or inspiration.
Why do all these stories have such similar structures? It’s because these stories are all based on the same thing. Avatar isn’t a copy of Dances with Wolves, rather, both films are based on a recurrent theme in human history: New people coming to a new land, to the detriment of the natives. This applies to Ferngully as well.
I agree, Avatar was the copy of Dances with the wolfes and it was boring!
It is not a one of a kind movie! I prefer real actors than blue weirdos…
Watch Fight Club,Shawshank Redemption, Life is beautiful, Unforgiven, etc….. to see real acting and great movies…
If you look up the production history on Avatar, you’ll find that Fox turned down Cameron in “no uncertain terms.”
Cameron then took the project to Disney, who decided to take him up on it. It was only when Fox realised other folks were interested that they came crawling back.
They really are idiots.
They are the same clowns that canceled Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse. All they care about are dollar signs like someone said.
Yeah, Fox should not make money on anything. They should only produce those projects that lose money. That’ll guarantee they’ll be around for a long, long time. All they care about is money. Stupid capitalists!
Is your head on straight? People here aren’t saying that Fox is stupid for trying to make money, rather, they are saying that they are stupid for trying to make lots of quick cash-ins rather than long-standing hits. Look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was huge at the box office for a little while, before dropping off in later weeks, and when it was released on DVD, is sales were mediocre. Now compare that to The Dark Knight, which was released and stayed on top of the box office for most of it’s theatrical run, and then returned exorbitant DVD sales. This is just fine to Fox, though, because they are always releasing a whole lot of movies with the exact same strategy.
X Men 2 is the best superhero movie ever made. His Superman was crap however.
Better than Batman Begins or The Dark Knight? Hmmm. I vote no. Thanks for playing though!
Yep, better than both Batmans (which were terrific). 2 against 1. Nah-nah.
Nah I would say spiderman2 followed by the 2 Nolan Batmans. I love the X-men comics but all the movies so far have been pretty crappy. Im not expecting much from this
Thank you spider-man 2 all the way, then the dark knight, then x-2. Batman Begins was not that great, I don’t know why you guys said that it’s one of the best of all time.
2 against 2. ha HA.
B:Begins the TDK were both WAaaaaY better than X-Men 2.
Accept it.
In my opinion, the dark knight is the best.. now x2 is good but I like the incredible hulk better ( the second one )
Both Batman movies were way better films. Sorry man.
The first 2 X men movies are SSSOOOOOO over rated.
Chris Nolans batman films are incredible they’re quite possibly my faves as well, but you still gotta give Singer props. super hero movies were a joke before he decided to go out on a limb and make his Xmen movie serious.
The original Superman is the best superhero movie ever, although it is so different from recent superhero movies that it is hard to compare them (although not impossible — Spider-Man II was mostly a rip-off of Superman II).
Singer is definitely hit-and-miss: X2 is very good and probably even underrated, his Superman is underrated (if not actually good), etc. Compared to the people who made X3 and Wolverine, he’s a cinematic genius! I’d let him try again with a big budget if I were a studio exec–based on how good his script is. Still, I would like to find out what he was thinking when he made his Superman movie and why he thinks it turned out like it did. I guess I can dream on — I’m lucky to be allowed to buy a ticket.
oh my heck superman was just different, theres so many haters on that flick. spacey was great as luthor. it didnt have as much action in it but neither did iron man. those films focused more on great characters than action action action. it seems that all mainstream America wants is for michael bay to conquer hollywood and make an 80 part series entitled EXPLOSIONS!!! IN 3D
Superman Returns was better than a lot of the superhero movies out there, but it was serioiusly flawed. Spacey was amazing as Lex Luthor, but no one else had the same screen-presence that he did. The story was great, but most of the acting sucked. Routh and whoever played Lois Lane were completely outshone by Spacey.
BTW Best superhero movies of all time:
Spiderman 2
The Dark Knight
X-Men 2
Superman 2
Batman
lol! Thanks for the laugh! I totally agree with you on Michael Bay…
totally agree. xmen 1 and 2 were amazing and im really bummed that hes not directing anymore.
At least he’s still involved. Hopefully Singer can pick the series back up.
It’s much more interesting to him take on Jack than another X-Men film anyway. How about Guy Pearce for D.D.?
I like that. I hadn’t thought of it but that would be a good choice. Guy Pierce!
Guy Pearce was one of the original candidates to play Daredevil in t he first one instead of Ben Affleck. He would be much better than Affleck.
I like Guy Pierce for Nolan’s Riddler. Wish it would happen.
I always thought Paul Bettany would make an awesome Riddler
Johnny Depp as The Riddler for sure
I just hope he won’t screw up again, like the melodramatic Superman Returns…..
Am a fan….so want to see him succeed
wow. another over hyped difficult director. why all the fuss? singer makes garbage. of course there’s a legion of sub idiots who like that kind of crap. when will it stop?
Well you sort of knew he wouldn’t be directing due to the other commitments but at least with him being on board as a producer gives us hope that maybe we will have something more akin to the first two X-Men movies.
Seems most likely they feel they have to beat Marvel’s other movies to the box office for some inane reason – even though the WOM audiences are shared.
Why is it so hard for them to do these right?
1.) singer is bland. the usual suspect is _not_ a brilliant movie it just had great p.r.
2.) x-men 1 and 2 did well at the boxoffice because it had a built in audience and (most) of the casting was great and the effects were top rate. but the story was sort of beside the point. who even remembers the plot?
3.) superman returns or whatever it was called was s**t. bad casting, bad everything. the best superman movie was superman 2. whoever tries to reboot this franchise again should look at that movie. and re-read the comics
4.) according to imdb this will be the 6th time a film called ‘jack the giant killer’ has been made.
where’s the creativity? singer’s got a bunch of retreads in various stages of production: excalibur, battlestar galactica, jack the giant killer, etc. can’t he come up with his own ideas? he’s definitely no chris nolan. he’s never had a memento.
I thought you were describing Tim Burton with that creativity remark there. Planet of the apes, alice, Wicked (I mean Maleficent)
we can add dark shadows and the adams family to that list.
Who the fuck needs another Memento when Bryan(Chris and John) made Public Access right out of the gate of school? And then they do Usual Suspects. But that’s not up to your standards
? This why why Japan was behind the ball and it took Europe to tell them they had a national treasure in Takashi Miike. Hey I would have rather have made those movies than Memento and then a remake of a OK foreign film. I mean One Hour Photo is more hardcore than anything Nolan did. So he’s not a god. They are just guys making movies. So don’t be saying Bryan is not original cause he adapts and remixes culture not to your liking. That’s all Walt Disney and Tim Burton do. Man you people, just stop bitching and make your own movies and show them and stuff. I mean wow. He’s not chris nolan(who’s films I dig), no shit. Bryan Singer has always been “the next him”, no one else, sorry if you can’t put that in a box.
> One Hour Photo
Hahahahaha! You sure are a connoisseur of fine cinema!
@dudette
You don’t have to worry about Singer’s schedule, he’s not doing Galactica now.
Cant agree more. Bland is a great way to sum singer up, his movies are boring and they have no character
Kinberg is involved? That’s bad news: the guy lucks his his way through one job after the next, largely destroying franchises in the process, hogging the glory for other people’s writing and thinking the sun shines out of his….prose.
At an action screenwriting seminar held last year in L.A., Kinberg utterly failed to turn up and gave no notice of his absence (despite being announced months in advance),leading to a now memorably famous diatribe by superscribe Shane Black (whose writing IS worth what you pay for) about the numerous failings of Kinberg’s writing. You had to be there to hear it in all its glory…
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the perfect young Magento — cold and cunny with charm and able to wrestle enough sympathy from the audience to keep him interesting
don’t really get why Singer is a big deal…overrated, hit-and-miss comic book movie director…even back with usual suspects he showed a heavy hand with the storytelling…he is about two more flops from doing straight to video gay porn
To all you guys who diss Singer and filmexecs with such harsh words…
Do you guys all still live at your mother’s place?
I fail to see the correlation between disagreeing with you and living with your mom. Unless I misread it and you meant living with YOUR mom, but I’m not really into blind dates.
I was a comic fan from way back, although after college I went to just picking up the occasional trade paperbacks. I’ve been a Marvel fan from way back, but I can honestly say that other than Iron Man, the only comic movies I really liked were Keaton and Nolan’s Batmen. Batman returns was directed very well and the look of the movie very accurately matched the comics – ditto for the Dark Knight. Both of those movies – objectively speaking, mind you – were also very well acted. With either of those movies (and Iron Man, to a much lesser extent) you can remove all the special effects, turn laser blasts into guns and stuff that lights up, and you still have an awesome movie.
Not so with X-Men or Spider-Man. If you had to rely on acting, cinematography, and storytelling, any scene that didn’t involve Patrick Stewart would fall flat on its face. Shoot, they picked Willem DaFoe for the Green Goblin, and then covered up his face and disguised his voice! Even ignoring the fact that Gobbo didn’t wear a mask, you’re still relying on the ‘cool’ factor much more than what the actors can bring to the table.
That’s why Singer sucks. Because you could pop any halfway decent actor into any of his roles, and the movie comes out exactly the same. I love Hugh Jackman, but almost anybody could have been Wolverine.
he’s already busted JACK into a million pieces. singer = hack.
the studio’s are living in the past.
Its clear Fox wants to hit a specific release date. Singer is committed to Jack the Giant Killer at WB. Keeping him involved as a producer will hopefully prevent the Fox crap mill from running the rebooted franchise into the ground like they did with the other films when he left. Sounds like the best possible scenario given the situation. Let’s hope they can get a solid director on board to launch this thing…i.e. not Gavin Pood or Brett Crapner.
dudette,
i could not agree more with your four points. (or care less about singer)
I class Singer as the mediocre leading the bland.
where’s the creativity? i have your answer. it’s in the deal making where hilarity ensues all the way to the bank.
X-Men are done under this regime. FOX has screwed the pooch so much so that its literally impossible to generate any excitement left for the series. X3 and Wolverine were such stinkers that how do they expect anyone to care anymore? Quality breeds loyalty. For folks anxiously awaiting future installments I really feel sorry for you because you’re going to get bargain bin crap, it’s that plain and simple. Since they don’t care so then why should I? I don’t care what new concept they come up with, I don’t care who’s in it, I don’t care if the trailer is well executed I AM DONE. Unless by some form of miracle that Disney gets their hands on the property and hand it over to the folks at Pixar or John Lassiter then I will resume interest. But until then…BRING ON THE AVENGERS!!!
As a lifelong comic-book fan- I am sick to death of all these epically mediocre superhero movies. And I’m sure the audience will eventually get tired of them too, and we’ll start to see more and more of them fail at the box office. Sadly, Hollywood will blame this on the fact they’re “comic-book movies”, rather than acknowledge they’ve beat the superhero genre into the ground.
Defender looks like it’s gonna be fun, Iron Man 2 will probably be good, Kick Ass is gonna kick ass, Losers looks awesome, I’m still hoping for a Hack/Slash movie and The Boys as well…
I think the future of the industry lies in those kind of comics, not the hundreds of issues based on Superman, Batman, Spider-Man etc…
I hope another 30 days of night gets made as well, but I doubt it=(
Iron Man 2 being the exception, obv.
Regardless of your feelings on singer he makes bank domestic and foreign. That said, fox could really go either way with filmmakers for x men first class. In the end it depends on the filmmakers. May I suggest David slade or how about bigelow? I would love her to prove women can make large action films and be mainstream block busters.
And my vote for daredevil is Ryan gosling.
Have you fucking Seen Point Break and Blue Steel dude, forget about Strange Days? She did that years ago.
Bryan Singer is a HACK and his X-Men movies are two of the most overrated films of the past twenty years. I’m glad he’s not directing.
Amen that!
X2 is a masterpiece.
Most superhero comic book movies are sh*t. Just an observation. Go read the old comics they are much more fun than the films.
If it’s still his treatment, and he’s part of the production team, I think this movie will do just fine
X Men 1 and 2 were very entertaining movie. Anyone that says Avatar is unoriginal is an idiot. Just because it shares a similar plot with the likes of Dances With Wolves and The Last Samurai doesn’t make it unoriginal. You could nit pick any movie to draw parallels and influences from other movies so get over it trolls!
I am soooo glad he has nothing to do with the next Superman movie. I mean he’s not as bad as Uwe Boll or Paul W.S.Anderson. But he is unimaginative,mediocre and undeservingly reaps the rewards of the talented people that work around him.
Paul W.S.Anderson’s movies are alot more fun to watch than Singers to be brutally honest. And neither is as horrible as Boll.
X-men are once for all just very good pop corn movies and nothing else. Part of their sucess was that Singer didn’t F-over the comic book canon. The two or was it three Punisher movies, The two Hulk movies failed because (one was Ang Lee is nothing more than blow s**t up, blow s**t up, blow s**t up, plot twist and blow s**t up) they didn’t stick to canon. Hulk wasn’t an aborted attempt to creat a super soldier but an gamma bomb, cold war accident. People, try reading Stan Lee’s “ORIGINS…” series and you might make an excellent movie for once. And after “THE HURT LOCKER” I’m all for seeing more of Mr. Guy Peace. Him as The Riddler would be interesting. What would spark my interest though would be seeing Paul McGann play Banshe in any up coming new X-Men movie.