Matthew Vaughn is Directing X-Men: First Class in a Year

It’s official: Matthew Vaughn, director of Kick-Ass and Stardust, is at the helm of X-Men: First Class, the reboot of the X-Men movie franchise.  This new prequel film (a long the same world-exploring lines as Wolverine: Origins) will “chart the epic beginning of the X-Men saga,” which probably means Professor X and Magneto as young rebellious allegory-for-civil-rights-leaders.

This dashes our dreams of watching a movie where the X-Men sit at the front of an airplane for two and a half hours, enjoying complementary drinks.

Matthew Vaughn was slated to direct the last X-Men movie, X-Men: Last Stand, but backed out just a few weeks before shooting began, and was replaced by Brett Ratner.  The director of the two earlier, more successful X-Men movies, Bryan Singer, will produce.

Perhaps more shocking than Vaughn’s appointment as director is the release date that 20th Century Fox has already announced: June 3rd, 2011, a mere thirteen months from now.  My guess, this is probably on the fast lane due to the legal entanglements of Marvel Comics coming under the ownership of Disney.  On the bright side, we can expect a bunch of fun casting and character speculation to start up quite soon. Bleeding Cool is already wondering which Vaughn regulars will make it in front of the camera this time.

And yes, this means that the final Harry Potter, third Transformers, fourth Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America movies will all come out in the same summer.  Start saving up for the popcorn now.

(via The Geek Files)