Bryan Singer on X-Men : First Class

 

The fourth installment to the X-Men series came in 2011 with X-Men: First Class, directed by Matthew Vaughn. Bryan Singer, the director of the original two X-Men films, was originally supposed to direct this movie but was caught up doing other projects at the time, however he co-wrote the script and formalised his duties to producer.

The movie is set primarily in 1962 in a time before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto. They were two mutants, friends and leaders in the making. They recruit a powerful team of meta-humans as they learn that the arch-nemesis and dangerous mutant Sebastian Shaw intends to start a nuclear war to destroy the world and gain power. But in this process a rift drives the friends apart and leads way to the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

Singer used this movie to go back and recreate history to develop the characters in the script, he says it was an ‘opportunity to show how young minds can evolve’, letting two characters with similar ideologies and identifications take different paths to achieve their goals. The script offers the characters a lot of depth and is compounded by the action, emotion and story.

The movie was a box office success grossing over $350 million worldwide and re-popularized the franchise with following sequels focusing on younger portrayals of the X-men characters. It was praised by critics for its strong script, well-rounded cast and powerful performances.