Bryan Singer, who launched Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men comic book adaptation franchise is returning to its director’s chair to helm the next installment – X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Singer will be taking the place of X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn, who vacated the job last week.
This is not the first time that Vaughn has left the franchise. After he directed the first two installments of the X-Men franchise, Singer headed over to Warner Brothers to do Superman Returns. Vaughn was initially hired for the third X-Men film X3: X-Men United, but left when he felt that there was not enough time to revise the script to a point where he would be happy with it before he needed to start filming in order to make the film’s studio-mandated release date. Evidently there were no hard feelings over Vaughn’s departure as he was brought back to helm the prequel X-Men: First Class.
Vaughn’s imprint will still be on the film however, as he wrote the treatment that scripter Simon Kinberg worked off of. Vaughn worked off of the popular comic storyline of the same name, though presumably he had to make adjustments to fit the story into the film franchise’s differing continuity.
Production on the project should be starting soon as Fox has the film scheduled for a July 18, 2014 release. If you can’t wait until then for your dose of mutant superhero action, the studio has the franchise installment The Wolverine debuting July 26, 2013.
