On Sunday I took my daughter Frecks to the MCM Expo at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London and while there we attended the X-Men: First Class panel held by screen writers Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz and this is what they had to say.
QUESTION: What mutant powers would you like to have yourselves?
ASHLEY MILLAR: To turn water into coffee, or more specifically caffiene.
ZACK STENTZ: I would have to be predictable and say invisibility. You could find out a lot of information from people if you were invisible!
QUESTION: How did you come to choose the characters for this film?
ASHLEY MILLAR: The Hellfire club was originally going to be used in the 3rd X-Men film if Bryan Singer had gone on to make it so that was always going to be the antagonists. We had Sebastian Shaw as the leader with Emma Frost so we wanted to counteract her diamond/ice visual with fire so at one point we were going to use Sunspot until we settled for Azazel for his visual look. As with Nightcrawler doing his blue smoke teleporting in the 2nd film we have Azazel creating the same effect but with red smoke which looked cool and fits in well with the Hellfire Club theme.
QUESTION: Is there a relationship between Havok and Cyclops?
ASHLEY MILLAR: I would say yes. But as to what it is I can't say. They certainly have the same surname! Is Alex, Scott's much older brother? Everything is possible, I mean their dad is space pirate who likes to put it about, he's not called a Starjammer for nothing!
QUESTION: What is the tone of the film?
ZACK STENTZ: It pretty much follows the tone of the previous X-Men movies. I would say that X1 kicked off the new wave of the darker role superhero movie. It's not as gritty as say the Dark Knight which has a theme of no hope running throughout until right at the last frame there is hope. What we have tried to do with this film is to build every characters journey differently so there are bitter sweet moments running throughout the film.
QUESTION: Was it difficult writing about characters with a conflicted viewpoint?
ZACK STENTZ: Absolutely not. We liken Xavier and Magneto to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They both wanted the same thing, their human rights and freedom, but had very different approaches to achieving that. When your characters have strong viewpoints It brings about conflict when they have emotional as well as intellectual reasons. The iconic line from X1 said by Magneto which was taken from Malcolm X was "By Any Means Necessary". When you see this movie, the iconic line will probably be something also said by Magneto "Never again".
QUESTION Where did all the inspiration come from?
ASHLEY MILLAR: Desperation! And caffiene. No really I guess inspiration comes from what moves you and would you think needs to be said.
ZACK STENTZ: You look for situations going on around you and look for points of similarities, points of contact between each character. Even though you are making a big superhero movie you try to keep it personal.
QUESTION: What does the future hold for X-Men movies?
ZACK STENTZ: Hopefully First Class is successful enough to warrant further movies. We would like to do more and set them in the 1970's, 80's and 90's. I think what you will also find is that there will be other X-Men related movies set in the present day as well.
QUESTION: What was it like working with Kenneth Brannagh on Thor and what was it like to see the world you had written come alive?
ASHLEY MILLAR: Firstly, personally it changed my life. It was like writing Shakespear for the cheap seats. We were in awe of the man. Here is a guy who is classically trained actor and director from a background of William Shakespear and Harold Pinter, and we were writing for him, so no pressure!
ZACK STENTZ: One of the things that amazed me was that we were sitting at the laptop and writing, Interior: Asgard Throne Room, Exterior: Jotenheim, Interior: Heimdall's Observatory. And you're thinking I wonder what that's going to look like? It's probably going to be shot against a green screen and be added by CGI like the Star Wars prequels. Then you go to visit Marvel Studios at Manhatten Beach, and you walk into a room not too unlike this (the Excel interior) and you see 30 feet high walls surrounding around you 360 degrees, and you are in Heimdall's Observatory! In front of you is Idris Elber who appears to be 8 feet tall...
ASHLEY MILLAR: Idris Elber IS actually 8 feet tall!
ZACK STENTZ: ...with a sword that is 6 feet tall, in a golden suit of armour and you're thinking okay I am actually in Asgard!
ASHLEY MILLAR: The Bifrost does actually work! That is how we got here today and beat the London traffic.
QUESTION: Which other Marvel characters would you like to write a screenplay for?
ASHLEY MILLAR: The Fantastic Four. The mistake made with the FF is that they are not superheroes, they are adventurers. It should all be about venturing into the unknown, space, the Negative Zone, the Microverse, they are explorers.
QUESTION: Which non Marvel characters would you like to turn into a movie?
ASHLEY MILLAR: That have not been done yet? I would take poor old Wonder Woman. She is this iconic character but the general public have this image of her twirling around and flying an invisible plane. But really she is an amazon warrior who could just gut you like a fish. That's the kind of Wonder Woman I want to see would love to do a real kick-ass version of her.
ZACK STENTZ: The Suicide Squad, a real bunch of odd ball characters to play off each other. Or I would like to delve into the realm of magic you know like with say Dr Fate. 12 years ago I wish I had pitched the idea of a teenage wizard with glasses, stupid J.K. Rowling!