Matthew Vaughn Will Return To Direct ‘X-Men: First Class’ Sequel

Well, the wheels were in motion and it was probably just a matter of time. Last fall you'll remember that much to the chagrin of fans everywhere, "X-Men: The Last Stand" writer Simon Kinberg was hired to pen the sequel to "X-Men: First Class." While the film was ultimately a bit of a disappointment for Fox — it's still the lowest grossing effort in the series — it at least won back the fanboys to the franchise who had given up after 'Last Stand' and the flat out awful "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." And with it's main cast — Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and James McAvoy — all set to become bigger stars in the next year or so, it's a no-brainer to put them all in the same movie again (especially if they're contractually obligated). Now, one more factor in the qualitative success of 'First Class' is back.

Buried in this report from Deadline about the re-up of Fox production president Emma Watts, the site reports that director Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct the sequel, with Bryan Singer on board to produce. Of course, the big question everyone will ask now is: when? The answer? While no production start has been set, this likely won't lens until 2013 if we had to guess. Michael Fassbender is spending his summer on "Twelve Years A Slave" while Jennifer Lawrence has "Catching Fire" on her calendar as well, as it will hit theaters next year.

But until then, it will leave plenty of time to speculate about the setting, with the retro approach one of the more charming aspects of 'First Class.' A varity of possibilities have been tossed around with Vaughn saying at one point he wants to start the sequel with Magneto assassinating JFK. Meanwhile, Singer has spoken about possibilities of a civil rights or Vietnam era movie. We can also only assume that Vaughn on board, that means Jane Goldman be on hand to rewrite whatever Kinberg puts together (fingers crossed).

Though Vaughn wasn't shy about his issues with the compressed shooting time on the film, he also was open about how much he enjoyed working on the film and kept the door open to return. Clearly, whatever issues there were, every is glad to work together again. No word yet on if Vaughn will knock something else out before he gets moving on this (he was recently eyeing adaptations of Mark Millar's "Superior" and "The Secret Service," or what the projected date is for the film. But of all the comic sequels in the works, this is probably the one we're looking forward to most.