Marvel Studios is allowing itself to breathe again given that its latest self-financed outing, Thor, has conquered at the box-office. It only has a two-week window to reap in most of its earnings before the inevitable onslaught of summer sequels kicks off this weekend with the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but it's gotten off to an admirable start. Marvel's execs will soon be holding their breath again this July, though, when the final piece of the cinematic puzzle that is the Marvel Avengers film slated for 2012 (which bears no relation to the 1998 disaster starring Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman and Sean Connery) falls into place: the Captain America movie.
Possibly of slightly less concern to them is the fate of X-men: First Class, a film that is arguably of more concern to 20th Century Fox, who continue to hold rights to make X-men films for as long as they keep churning them out, and who, if the trailers and teaser clips are any indication, are actually taking that responsibility very seriously for the first time in years. This film looks at least as good as the most celebrated film in the series X2: X-men United, and easily better than anything the studio has come up with since the original series director Bryan Singer left the franchise to try (and fail) to revive the Superman franchise. Though I actually enjoyed the box-office bomb Stardust and found Kick-Ass to be last year's one true guilty pleasure, I honestly didn't think new series director Matthew Vaughn had it in him to make a film that looks as impressive as it does in the trailers.
More than the ultra-slick presentation of this film, however, I think what I really admire Fox for is the risks they appear to have taken with this film. The first risk they've taken is the decision to make film a prequel rather than a reboot, even if it means accepting all of the baggage of everything that came before it, in particular the damage to the general X-men storyline wrought by the third film. Mercifully, though, it appears to have dumped the X-men Origins: Wolverine prequel as canon, judging by the fact that one character who appears in the Wolvie pic as a teenager in the 70s appears in a 1960s-set First Class as an adult. But Fox has done what not even Sony, the studio behind the box-office juggernauts that the Spider-Man films were, would dare do; which was stay the course set by the previous films. The decision to stick to the original films' timelines has led to other interesting decisions, like setting it in the 60s, a quirk which could potentially alienate younger viewers who may or may not know anything about JFK or the Cold War, and excluding just about everyone from the original films' cast, including Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. This movie has the potential to be the first actual X-MEN movie, and not just a movie about Wolverine told against the backdrop of the X-men's world.
The sad part is that as far as sequels/prequels/reboots go, I don't see XM:FC as one of the summer's more highly-anticipated offerings. While it could theoretically pop, with POTC 4, Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Hangover II all wreaking box-office havoc before it, it could just as easily get lost in the shuffle. This is actually something that could benefit Marvel Studios as a failed X-men film could discourage Fox from making any more and therefore encourage them to allow the rights to revert back to Marvel and therefore their corporate parent, Disney, but if the film is as good as it looks it would be a genuine shame for audiences to ignore it. If the film is as good as it looks, Fox definitely deserves a shot at making more of them.
It's amazing what the threat of having the film rights revert back to Marvel can do...
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