Talking to Slash Film, director Matthew Vaughn shared more info on making the upcoming comic book film X-Men: First Class. He addressed rebooting the franchise, his take on the characters, story and more. He also talked about making a sequel to Kick-Ass. Check it out below.
On making a standalone film:
"My main goal was to make as good a film that could stand on its own two feet regardless of all the other films. However I thought anything that worked in all the other movies, and I could have some fun with nodding towards, I would. But my main rule was, ‘You know what, we’re trying to reboot and start a whole new X-Men franchise’ and therefore, making a film work on its own two feet was far more important than trying to be referential to the prior movies."
On the characters chosen for X-Men: First Class, he said:
"That was already done for me. When I came aboard, the characters were already done and ironically I’d always wanted to do a Bond movie so I sort of thought I could have my cake and eat it too. I can do a Bond film and an X-Men movie at the same time. And I’d always liked political, Cold War, espionage thrillers so it was sort of the back drop that got me more excited. Magneto and Professor X were the main thrust of the film so all the supporting characters were already picked for me and I thought whoever picked them did a good job."
On the expectations for this film:
"I’d rather people’s expectations are low and they’re excited than high and disappointed. And I’m a big believer, I mean I remember talking to Daniel Craig about this when he was doing Bond and he was being absolutely destroyed by the web and I said ‘Look dude, your work is gonna do the talking and they’re gonna all eat their hats and apologize and say you’re great’ and I’m a big believer that my job is to make the film and not to worry about what everyone else thinks. And if I make a film that people like, then great, if I make a film that people don’t like then… I mean, that’s my job and you can’t worry about pleasing people. I just try and make as good a film as possible and if people like it, great, and if they don’t, I tried my best."
Regarding the possible sequel, he said:
"You could do hundreds. We’ve got from 62 to 2000, whenever that was set. The fun thing for this, sequel-wise, is you can go through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s now. If people go see it, I think there’s a lot of sequels to do, I’ve got lots of ideas but I also don’t like to curse it because too many times in my life now I’ve been asked about if there’s gonna be a sequel to a film which I just directed and then that film doesn’t do as well in the US box office and I go, 'Eh, guess not.'
As for making the sequel to Kick-Ass:
"We’re still discussing that at the moment. We might do it. People forget that Kick Ass we made for $28 million and now with DVD and everything else has made $225 million in revenue so it’s done great business. A lot of people say it could be like Austin Powers how the first one people couldn’t get their heads around, they all discovered it on video and then the second one was a huge blockbuster. My theory is I don’t know how to make sure Kick Ass 2 is as good as Kick Ass 1. I enjoyed making the movie so much and I loved working with all the characters in it so who knows? There could be one but if I do a sequel to that it’s gotta be just as good, if not better."
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jason Flemyng, Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Bacon, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Jennifer Lawrence and January Jones,
X-Men: First Class is set to hit theatres on June 3!
For more of this interview just follow the link below.