The trio of director Matthew Vaughn, actors James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the principle senior leads of “X-Men: First Class” is a confluence of great talent, an exciting prospect and one of the reasons we’re cautiously anticipating this super-hero film (when the original idea was conceived it just sounded like “X-Men: Babies” with emo-TV writer Josh Schwartz scripting and we weren’t at all interested).
But there seems to be some kind of sea change happening at the moment — perhaps uncertainty over the direction the storyline should take– and things might not be going as smoothly as we’d hoped. We’re hearing that the script keeps going through revisions and revisions; it’s already passed through the hands of Josh Schwartz (“The O.C.”), to writing team Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller (“Thor”) and more recently, Jamie Moss (“Street Kings produced what sounds like a totally new and rehauled version , under the supervision of Bryan Singer (who is now one of the producers). On top of all that, the screenplay received another touch-up by Jane Goldman, co-writer of Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass” and “Stardust” a few weeks ago.
Relatively last-minute script changes that happen in the lead up a shoot (the film begins production in August) are very common and no cause for alarm (“Iron Man” for example was incomplete when shooting started and was written on the fly, though that approach failed on ‘IM2’), but now a rumor is making the rounds that the characters of Cyclops and Jean Grey might not even be in the picture.
Couple that with this troubling report from Showbiz 411 — who has been a frontrunner on the casting news of this project — and you’ve got some potentially distressing news. It’s already been reported that theater actor Ben Walker has been fired and then rehired to take the role of the Beast. And Showbiz’s Roger Friedman basically confirms this rumor and says that Walker’s sick of the “uncertainty” with the project and has bailed and resigned to a Broadway gig instead.
Essentially it sounds like Walker may have been cast before McAvoy and Fassbender (but never announced) and when those two actors came on board, it was thought their their ages (31, 34) were too close to Walker’s (he’s 28 and the age gap between Professor X and Magneto and the X-Men in their teenage years is obviously supposed to be far greater).
Despite the astronomical success that was “Avatar,” Freidman says 20th Century Fox is getting nervous after the back-to-back bombs of “A-Team,” “Knight and Day,”and “Marmaduke,” and the expectations for “X-Men: First Class” to perform at the box-office have grown. Combine with that the outrageous success of “Twilight: Eclipse” — it’s grossed $108 million worldwide as of July 1st and could reach the $200 million mark by Monday — and the film could be moving in another direction – one that we all feared.
The Showbiz author writes, “Look for a lot of different Taylor Lautners to assume the other roles. Fox, I’m told, even checked Lautner’s availability.” Freidman might not be well liked in the film community (most writers with far fewer sources treat his stories as rumors), but like it or not, he’s been on point with his “X-Men: First Class” reporting. Plus with second-tier characters like Banshee and Emma Frost and maybe even Multiple Man entering the picture, we’re worried they might be cramming far too many characters into what should be a fairly basic, introductory story.
We can only hope that just because they’re going younger — and frankly they should, that gap is meant to be there — it doesn’t mean they’re going dumber, but as we already said, with Vaughn hired in May, production starting in August and the film scheduled for a June 3, 2011 release date, ‘First Class’ is on an accelerated time line and possibly a far too rushed one. In the interest of being fair and anti-hyperbole, there may be no need for worry yet; the casting choices so far are solid.
Right now, “X-Men: First Class” stars Fassbender, McAvoy and Alice Eve (“She’s Outta My League”). Aaron Johnson (“Kick-Ass”) looked like he was a lock to play Cyclops (presumably that character) a few weeks ago, but obviously things are in flux and who knows where that stands now. What remains clear is that Vaughn and his producers are going to need to find a new Beast.
Lastly, there’s been a lot of crossover in the casting of ‘First Class’ and “Spider-Man” (Frank Dillane is another actor named twice), but now that Sony and director Marc Webb have found their webslinger in Andrew Garfield, don’t be surprised if you hear some of the same names once up for for the role of Peter Parker now chasing or being sought for “X-Men” roles. There’s still a month or more to go before cameras roll in London, so hopefully any hedging of bets or fear-based decisions by the studio will be sorted out before then. Just a small reminder; Matthew Vaughn did once bail on “X-Men 3” only nine weeks before it was about to begin production (Brett Ratner ultimately took over) because the film was moving away from his creative vision so he’s already demonstrated that if he’ll pull the plug if he’s not comfortable with the direction of his project. Though, one would assume, to drop out twice would be career suicide — at least where 20th Century Fox projects are concerned. Let’s hope they figure all this out.
