Admittedly I’m not the biggest X-Men fan in the world. However I loved X-Men: First Class, and thought it was the movie the X-Men films always should have been. After having recently read the famous ‘Days Of Future Past’ arc on which this sequel will be based, I found myself getting pretty excited for it. Time travel stories are always great in my book, and Michael Vaughn brought us a group of mutants who actually fought people, used their powers in cool ways, and did things other than talk each other to death.

From where I’m going with this, I’m guessing you can surmise that I wasn’t a fan of the original X-Men trilogy. Especially the second, which nearly everybody else in the worlds seems to think is a masterpiece. I found it flat, boring, and pretty unremarkable considering the storyline it was supposed to be setting up. X-Men 3 at least had mutants fighting and doing things, rather than sitting around and talking about stuff all the time. It was a piece of crap, but it was an entertainingly bad piece of crap. That assessment I just made usually makes most X-Men fans turn off their brains to me once I see it, but I express it to show you just how much I truly loved First Class, and how sad I am to see Vaughn go.

via [EW]

[quote]EW has confirmed that Matthew Vaughn has decided not to direct the film, which he co-wrote, titled X-Men: Days of Future Past. The movie is a spinoff of last year’s X-Men: First Class, which Vaughn directed and also co-wrote.

While Deadline reports that Bryan Singer, who launched the X-Men franchise with 2000′s X-Men, is on a short list to helm the sequel, Singer’s reps at William Morris had no comment when reached by EW. Singer is already named as a producer on X-Men: Days of Future Past. He also co-produced X-Men: First Class.

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I have nothing against Singer per se, and in fact I love his other non-X-Men related work immensely. However, the thought of Bryan Singer bringing his cerebral, talky, overly serious style back to this franchise leaves me cold. That’s not to say that I’m hoping Brett Rattner picks up this project, because I would rather have a talky, boring, mutant time travel story, than a f***ing stupid one that makes no sense and is acted horribly. I suppose no matter how I look at it though, it’s a lose-lose for me. One one hand, I’m either going to get another mutant related snoozefest, or some other person is going to pick it up and bring some kind of style to it that will pale in comparison to Vaughn’s.

If I had to choose a new director, I guess I’d pick Rian Johnson. Looper showed us that he knows how to handle a time travel story, emotional pathos, and action to boot. In fact that sounds almost better than the thought of Vaughn doing it. If you’re gonna show us big scary sentinels snatching people up, a dystopian world where mutants are outlaws, and everything has gone to hell, please please make it good. If Singer does get the project, I’m hoping he’ll prove me wrong and make an exciting, exhilarating film. I hate being that guy who hates everything everyone else likes, but boy it sure does seem like it’s gonna be that way with this flick.