X-Men: First Class is a 2011 American
superhero film, based on the
X-Men characters appearing in
Marvel Comics. The fifth installment in the
X-Men series, the film was directed by
Matthew Vaughn and produced by
Bryan Singer, and acts as a
prequel to the
original X-Men trilogy. The story is set primarily in 1962 during the
Cuban Missile Crisis, and focuses on the relationship between
Charles Xavier (Professor X) and
Erik Lensherr (Magneto), and the origin of their groups—the
X-Men and the
Brotherhood of Mutants, respectively. The film stars
James McAvoy as Xavier and
Michael Fassbender as Lensherr, leading an ensemble cast that includes
Kevin Bacon,
January Jones,
Rose Byrne,
Jennifer Lawrence,
Zoë Kravitz,
Nicholas Hoult and
Lucas Till.
Producer
Lauren Shuler Donner first thought of a prequel based on the young X-Men during the production of
X2, and later producer
Simon Kinberg suggested to
20th Century Fox an adaptation of the comic series
of the same name, though the film does not follow the comic closely. Bryan Singer, who had directed both
X-Men and
X2, became involved with the project in 2009, but he had to only produce and co-write
First Class due to other projects. Matthew Vaughn, who was previously attached to both
X-Men: The Last Stand and
Thor, became the director, and also wrote the final script with his writing partner
Jane Goldman.
First Class entered production in August 2010, with
principal photography
concluding in December and additional filming finishing in April 2011,
just a few weeks before the film's premiere in June 2011. The tight
schedule proved a challenge to the six companies responsible for the
extensive visual effects, which included computer-generated sets and
digital doubles for the actors. Locations included
Oxford, the
Mojave desert and
Georgia, with soundstage work done in both
Pinewood Studios and the
20th Century Fox stages in Los Angeles. The depiction of the 1960s drew inspiration from the
James Bond films of the period.
First Class
received positive reviews, being considered a well-written and fresh
revival of the franchise, and was a box-office success with earnings of
$353 million worldwide. A sequel titled
X-Men: Days of Future Past is set for release in July 2014.
Plot
At a
World War II concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1944, scientist
Dr. Klaus Schmidt observes young
Erik Lensherr
bend a metal gate with his mind when the child is separated from his
mother. In his office, Schmidt orders Lensherr to move a coin on a desk,
killing his mother when Lensherr cannot. In grief and anger, Lensherr's
magnetic power manifests, killing two guards and destroying the room.
Meanwhile, at a mansion in
Westchester County, New York, young
telepath Charles Xavier meets young shape-shifter
Raven
whose natural form is blue. Overjoyed to meet someone else "different",
he invites her to live with his family as his foster sister.
Eighteen years later, Lensherr is tracking down Schmidt, while Xavier is graduating from
Oxford University with a thesis about
mutation. In
Las Vegas,
CIA officer
Moira MacTaggert, disguised as a stripper, follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the
Hellfire Club, where she sees Schmidt (now known as
Sebastian Shaw),
telepathic Emma Frost, and
teleporter Azazel. Threatened by Shaw and teleported by Azazel to the
War Room, Hendry advocates the deployment of
nuclear missiles in
Turkey. Hendry later is killed by the energy-absorbing mutant Shaw.
MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they convince the Director
John McCone
that mutants exist and Shaw is a threat. Another CIA executive sponsors
the mutants and invites them to the secret "Division X" facility.
MacTaggert and Xavier find Shaw as Lensherr is attacking him, rescuing
Lensherr from drowning as Shaw escapes. Xavier brings Lensherr to
Division X, where they meet young scientist
Hank McCoy, a mutant with
prehensile feet, who believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance. Xavier uses McCoy's mutant-locating device
Cerebro to seek recruits against Shaw. Xavier and Lensherr recruit stripper
Angel Salvadore. Later, taxi driver
Armando Muñoz, Army prisoner
Alex Summers, and
Sean Cassidy join, and code-name themselves Darwin, Havok, and Banshee, respectively. Raven dubs herself
Mystique. Xavier and Lensherr also approach
Wolverine, who declines with a profanity.
When Frost meets with a Soviet general in the
USSR, Xavier and Lensherr capture her and learn of Shaw's intentions to start
World War III and trigger mutant ascendency. Meanwhile, Azazel,
Riptide
and Shaw attack Division X, killing everyone but the mutants, and asks
them to join him. Angel accepts; when Havok and Darwin retaliate, Shaw
absorbs Havok's energy blast and uses it to kill Darwin. Xavier takes
the mutants to his family mansion for training. In Moscow, Shaw compels
the general to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba.Shaw, wearing a
helmet that foils Xavier's telepathy, shadows the Soviet fleet in a
submarine to ensure the missiles arrive.
Raven thinking mc coy likes her in her natural form tells him not to
use the cure, when he tells her that she is not attractive she attempts
to seduce Lensherr in the shape of possible girl, when he tells her that
she is as beautiful as she is, stealing a kiss with her. Using the cure
on himself backfires, rendering McCoy a blue beast. McCoy pilots a
variant jet to take the mutants and MacTaggert to the blockade line.
Lensherr uses his magnetic power to lift Shaw's submarine from the water
to a nearby island. During the ensuing battle, Lensherr seizes Shaw's
helmet, allowing Xavier to immobilize Shaw. Lensherr tells Shaw that he
shares Shaw's
exclusivist view of mutants but, to avenge his mother, kills Shaw—over Xavier's objections—by forcing a Nazi coin through his brain.
Fearing the mutants, both fleets fire their missiles at them, which
Lensherr turns back in mid-flight. In a struggle, Xavier keeps Lensherr
from destroying the fleets with the missiles, but when MacTaggert shoots
at Lensherr, a deflected bullet hits Xavier in the spine. Lensherr
leaves with Angel, Riptide, Azazel, and Mystique. A wheelchair-bound
Xavier and his mutants return to the mansion, where he intends to open a
school. MacTaggert promises never to reveal his location and they kiss;
at a CIA debriefing later, she says she has no clear memory of recent
events. Lensherr frees Frost from confinement, now calling himself
"Magneto".
Production
Development
During the production of
X2, producer
Lauren Shuler Donner
discussed the idea of a film focusing on the young X-Men with the crew,
which was met with approval; the concept was revived during the
production of
X-Men: The Last Stand.
[35] One of
The Last Stand's writers,
Zak Penn, was hired to write and direct this spin-off,
[36] but this idea later fell through.
[37]
Penn explained in 2007 that "the original idea was to have me do a
young X-Men spin-off, a spin-off of the young X-Men characters. But
someone came up with a pretty interesting idea [...] it was this guy who
worked with me named Mike Chamoy, he worked a lot with me on
X3. He came up with how to do a young X-Men movie which is not what you'd expect."
[37]
As producer
Simon Kinberg read the comic series
X-Men: First Class, he suggested studio
20th Century Fox
to adapt it. Kinberg, however, did not want to follow the comic too
much, as he felt "it was not fresh enough in terms of storytelling",
considering them too similar to
Twilight and
John Hughes movies, and also because the producers wanted an adaptation that would introduce new characters.
[35]
Both Kinberg and Shuler Donner said that they wanted characters with
visuals and powers that had not been seen and that worked well as an
ensemble, even if they did not work together in the comics.
[12] Shuler Donner later said that the original idea was to
green-light First Class depending on the success of
X-Men Origins: Magneto.
[38]
In 2008,
Josh Schwartz was hired to write the screenplay, while declining the possibility of directing
X-Men: First Class.
[39] Fox later approached
Bryan Singer, director of
X-Men and
X2, in October 2009.
[40] Schwartz later said that Singer dismissed his work as "he wanted to make a very different kind of movie",
[41] with the director instead writing his own
treatment which was then developed into a new script by
Jamie Moss.
[40] Singer denied using
Sheldon Turner's script for
Magneto as inspiration to write his draft of
First Class,
[42] but the
Writer's Guild of America arbitration still credited Turner for the film's story, while Moss and Schwartz's collaborations ended up uncredited.
[43][44]
Singer set the film in a period where Xavier and Magneto were in their
twenties, and seeing that it was during the 1960s, added the Cuban
Missile Crisis as a backdrop, considering it would be interesting to
"discuss this contemporary concept in a historical context". Shuler
Donner suggested the
Hellfire Club as the villains.
[35]
In addition to Moss,
Ashley Edward Miller and
Zack Stentz were hired to rewrite the script. Miller compared it tonally to Singer's work on the first two
X-Men films.
[45]
The pair centered the film on Xavier and Magneto's relationship, and
wrote the other characters and storylines in terms of "how they fit in
the tension between Erik and Charles".
[35] Singer dropped out of the director's position in March 2010 due to his commitment to a
Jack the Giant Killer adaptation. He formalized his duties from director to producer.
[46]
The producers listed various possible directors, but at first did not consider
Matthew Vaughn because he started working on
The Last Stand before backing out. After seeing Vaughn's satirical superhero film
Kick-Ass (2010), Kinberg decided to contact Vaughn to see if he would be interested in
First Class.
[35]
When Fox offered Vaughn the "chance to reboot X-Men and put your stamp
all over it", he first thought the studio was joking, but accepted after
discovering that it was to be set in the 1960s.
[47] The director stated that
First Class would become the opportunity to combine many of his dream projects: "I
got my cake and ate it, managed to do an
X-Men movie, and a
Bond thing, and a
Frankenheimer political thriller at the same time".
[4] Vaughn signed on as Singer's replacement in May 2010, and Fox subsequently announced a June 3, 2011 release date.
[48] Vaughn also rewrote the script with his screenwriting partner
Jane Goldman,
adding new characters and changing existing character arcs and
dynamics—for instance, the idea of a love triangle between Xavier,
Magneto and Moira MacTaggert was cut.
[35] The character of
Sunspot
was also cut, as the director felt that "we didn't have enough time or
money" to make the character work. Vaughn and Goldman considered
including mentions to the
Civil Rights Movement,
but ultimately the director felt that "I had enough political subplot
in this movie". Vaughn stated that his biggest concern was to both make
Erik and Charles' friendship believable given the short timespan of the
film, and on how the character of Magneto was built - "Shaw was the
villain, but now you're seeing all those elements of Shaw going into
Magneto."
[4] An action scene that was to have been set in a dream sequence with revolving rooms was scrapped after the release of
Inception (2010).
[49]
Describing his thought process towards the material, Vaughn said he
was motivated by "unfinished business" with Marvel, having been
previously involved with the production of both
X-Men: The Last Stand[47] and
Thor.
[50] Vaughn declared that he was more enthusiastic about
First Class than
The Last Stand
due to not being constrained by the previous installments, and having
the opportunity to "start fresh", while "nodding towards" the successful
elements from those films.
[50] Vaughn compared
First Class to both
Batman Begins (2005), which restarted a franchise with an unseen approach,
[51] and the 2009
Star Trek film, which paid homage to the original source material while taking it in a new direction with a fresh, young cast.
[52]
Regarding continuity, Vaughn said his intention was "to make as good a
film that could stand on its own two feet regardless of all the other
films" and also that could "
reboot and start a whole new X-Men franchise".
[50]
Goldman added the film was kind of an "alternate history" for the
X-Men, saying that while rebooting, the writers did not want to go fully
"against the
canon of the
X-Men trilogy", comparing to the various approaches the comic had in over fifty years of publication.
[53]
Filming
Principal photography began on August 31, 2010, in
Oxford, England, which included
St Aldate's street and some of the University of Oxford's buildings, and lasted for two days.
[54] Production then moved to
Pinewood Studios in
Iver,
[55] and to
Georgia in October, including
Tybee Island,
Thunderbolt and
Savannah,
[56] after sites in
Louisiana,
North Carolina[57] and
West Michigan were considered.
[58] Jekyll Island was chosen over
Tybee Island after a producer reviewed the locations on
Google Earth and thought the water near Jekyll looked more blue.
[57]
Palm trees were planted into the island's sand so that it would look
more like a tropical beach, but the cold weather caused many of the palm
trees to become brown or die only days into the shoot, necessitating
significant digital color correction from the visual effects team.
[27] Additional location shooting took place in Russia.
[59] A section of the plot is set in the Argentine coastal city of
Villa Gesell, but was filmed in another province of the country with no beach but with mountains instead.
[20][60] Washington, D.C., the
Mojave Desert and Fox's soundstages in Los Angeles also served as locations.
[20] The
Englefield House in
Berkshire served as the
X-Mansion,
and had its interior decoration adapted to resemble the way the mansion
looked in the previous films. Both the submarine and the
X-Jet were built on hydraulic sets so that they could be rotated for the vehicles' movements.
[61]
Principal photography ended in December, but additional filming
continued into April 2011, leaving only three to four weeks for
post-production before the film's scheduled premiere in June.
[62] The tight schedule to meet the release date led Vaughn to declare that he had "never worked under such time pressure".
[63] The film cost approximately $160 million to produce without tax breaks,
[64] with the eventual cost around $140 million.
[2]
The 1960s setting of
X-Men: First Class was technologically inspired by the
James Bond films of that era, also added to the international feel of the characters.
[59]
Kinberg said the series was a major influence for the way they "did a
cool job representing the period, in a way it still felt muscular and
action-oriented", and Vaughn added that Magneto was his attempt to
recreate
Sean Connery's
Bond in both style and the "badass, charming, ruthless and sweet" personality.
[61]
The director said his goal was to "feel like a '60s Bond film, but with
a little bit of reality it could be grounded in. I wanted there to be
just a hint of this world of the mutants coming through. A mutant in
this world having powers needed to be the equivalent of you or I
sneezing, as normal as possible, at least until the humans start seeing
it for the first time."
[7]
At the same time, Vaughn tried to do the "bloody hard balancing" of
modern and antique to recreate the 60s in way it was "not so alien to
the kids that it looked like a
period piece."
[61] The director also tried to depict the era still in a realistic way, particularly "that 60s
misogynist vibe" with women in skimpy suits, and McTaggert's reliability as a CIA agent being questioned.
[4]
Vaughn said he shot the film in a way it resembled the productions of
the 1960s, with "very traditional framing, and camera movement when it
needs to move, not just throwing it around and whizz-bang",
[4] and using the
anamorphic format "to create a widescreen experience, which is emblematic of '60s movies, such as the
James Bond films".
[20] The director had to hire five
cinematographers - with sole credit being given to
John Mathieson, who came halfway through the shoot and did "forty-five percent, fifty-five percent" of the film - and four
assistant directors to successfully convey the look he wanted for the film.
[4][7]
Visual effects supervisor Matt Johnson added that for the lighting of
the digital interior of Cerebro, "keeping with the '60s vibe, we put in
some old school elements such as
lens flare and
chromatic aberration and
edge fringing."
[20]
The aesthetics of the decade were also invoked by designers Simon
Clowes and Kyle Cooper of Prologue Films, who were responsible for the
end credits and tried to do something that "could be done with
traditional optical". The credits animation depicts DNA strands through
simple geometric shapes, drawing inspiration from both
Saul Bass and
Maurice Binder's work in the
Bond films.
[65]
The origin story made the X-Men costumes resemble the ones in the
original comics, while still being functional, with the yellow parts
resembling
Kevlar and the blue looking like
ballistic nylon, and resembling 1962 apparel in both the fabrics and the "
Space Age
fashion". The costumes tried to convey the character personalities—for
instance, Xavier wore loose clothes, and Emma Frost's costumes were
white and shimmery. Magneto's costume at the film's ending also closely
resembled the original version from the comics, and three versions of
his helmet were made, two to fit Fassbender's head and one for Bacon's.
[66]
Effects
First Class employed 1,150
visual effects shots,
[67] which were done by six companies:
[20] Rhythm & Hues was responsible for Emma Frost, Mystique and Angel, as well as set extensions;
Cinesite handled Azazel, the visuals for Cerebro and environment effects;
Luma Pictures did Banshee, Havok and Darwin;
Moving Picture Company did Beast, Riptide, and the scene where Shaw's yacht is destroyed and he escapes in a submarine;
Digital Domain created Sebastian Shaw's powers, and
Weta Digital was responsible for the climactic battle in Cuba.
[27] The overall coordination was provided by visual effects designer
John Dykstra,
who said the biggest difficulty was the tight schedule: "It was
slightly less than a year and I've never done anything like that before (
Spider-Man was frequently two years)."
[67] British company 4dMax employed special
3D scanners to digitize data of the sets and actors which would be used by the effects companies.
[20] This allowed for computer-generated sets such as the mirrored nuclear reactor where Magneto battles Shaw
[67]—for which the effects team used the mirror maze fight in
Enter the Dragon
as a reference—and the domed walls of Cerebro. Digital models of
Washington and Moscow were also created based on photographs of the
actual cities,
[27] with the Russian one in particular having vehicles and military hardware based on videos of a 1962
Red Square, and a digital army doing an actual Soviet-style
march. With the exception of scenes featuring the actors on ships (shot on a small
bridge
set) and the X-Jet (done on a set replicating the front two-thirds of
the aircraft, which was mounted atop a roller wheel so it could be spun)
the naval battle was entirely digital, featuring a simulated ocean and
high resolution 3D models of the X-Jet, Shaw's submarine and 16
warships. The designs were mostly based on real vehicles, with the jet
being a modified
SR-71 Blackbird,
the submarine a combination of various models from the 1940s and 50s,
and replicas of the actual US and USSR fleets in the 1960s — though a
few were not in service in 1962. A particular Soviet cruiser was a
larger version of the
Kresta I and
II, leading Weta to dub it the
Kresta III.
[20] Practical effects
were still used whenever possible, such as having on location most of
the objects young Erik throws after his mother's death, actors and
stuntmen dangled from wires, and real explosions and light effects as
reference for Havok's beams.
[10]
While in the comics Shaw's absorption power was depicted by having him grow up to ten times his original size,
First Class instead does what company
Digital Domain
called a "kinetic echo", where a digital Kevin Bacon would be rippled,
deformed and at times multiplied in repeated "iterations" that appear in
a short period, to "see [Shaw] displace and deform in a kinetic and
organic way".
[10] According to Dykstra, the biggest problem with Frost's diamond body was depicting it "without looking like she was made of
Jell-o or the
polygon model of a human being".
[67] The morphed Frost, which the visual effects tried to make look more like a faceted crystal than glass,
[67] was
rotomated into Jones in the live-action plates, while still retaining the actress' eyes and lips.
[20] As the character kept on going in and out of her diamond form, a
motion capture
tracking suit could not be employed, so instead the effects team used
both gray and chrome balls and a jumpsuit covered in mirrors—which also
served as a lighting reference.
[10][27]
For Angel's digital wings, the animators studied slow-motion footage of
dragonflies to create the wing pattern in a realistic way,
[20] and the designers added
iridescence to "make the wings prettier".
[68] The visual of Banshee's screams was done through a digital ring-like structure based on renderings of sound waves such as
Schlieren photography.
[20][27] The visual for Havok's blasts employed similar rings,
[27] concentrated in beams or rings of light which were then
match moved into Till's mimed throwing.
[20]
For Banshee's flight, the visual effects team used digital doubles only
for distant shots, with closer ones employing Jones shot in a special
flight rig.
[20] Azazel's teleporting was made to resemble the "inky smoky effects" used with
Nightcrawler, who appeared in
X2 and is Azazel's son in the comics.
[20]
However, while Nightcrawler only left a smoke trail, the visual effects
team had Azazel accompanied by digital fire and smoke "because he was
more closely aligned with the devil". The fire was also used "as a mask
to hide or reveal the body", according to effects supervisor Matt
Johnson.
[27]
Since the visible part of whirlwinds are the dust and dirt sucked up by
them, the ones Riptide produces were made to resemble "a tornado of
gas, made out of nothingness" by visual effects supervisor Nicolas
Aithadi. The final product was mostly a practical effect made with
dry ice, which was augmented by
computer-generated imagery.
[20]
The visual effects team portrayed Mystique's abilities slightly
differently due to this being a younger version, with "the scales being
slightly longer and the transformation being slightly showier than when
she became the more mature Rebecca."
[67]
For Beast, computer graphics depicted his simian-like feet, the
transformation sequence, and a few facial replacements for when Beast
opened his mouth wider than the mask on Hoult's face allowed.
Release and reception
Box office
The premiere for
X-Men: First Class took place at the
Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, on May 25, 2011,
[71]
and a week later, on June 3, the film went on general release. In North
America, the film opened on approximately 6,900 screens at 3,641
locations, debuting atop the weekend box office with earnings of
$55.1 million across the three days,
[72][73] including $3.4 million in its Friday midnight launch.
[74] This opening was much lower than the opening weekends of
X-Men: The Last Stand ($102.7 million),
X2 ($85.5 million), and
X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($85.0 million), but slightly higher than the
original film ($54.5 million).
[73] Executives at
20th Century Fox stated they had achieved their goal by opening with about the same numbers as the first
X-Men film and that it was an excellent start to a new chapter of the franchise.
[72] First Class
also opened 8,900 locations in 74 overseas markets, which brought in
$61 million during the weekend—standing third in the overseas ranking
behind
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and
The Hangover Part II.
The film opened atop the box office in twenty countries, with the
biggest grosses being in the United Kingdom ($9 million, including
previews), France ($7.1 million), Mexico ($5 million), South Korea
($5.4 million) and Australia ($5.1 million).
[75] In its second weekend
X-Men: First Class dropped 56.2 percent, the second smallest second weekend drop in the franchise behind
X-2: X-Men United (53.2 percent), and came in with $24.1 million, in second place to
Super 8.
[76] Overseas, it rose to number two behind
Kung Fu Panda 2, with $42.2 million.
[77]
The film grossed $146,408,305 in the United States and Canada and
$207,215,819 in foreign markets, bringing its worldwide total to
$353,624,124.
[3]
Critical response
The film had received generally positive reviews, with the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
showing 87 percent positive and a rating of 7.4 out of 10 from 231
reviews. The critic consensus was that "with a strong script, stylish
direction, and powerful performances from its well-rounded cast,
X-Men: First Class is a welcome return to form for the franchise."
[78] On another review aggregator,
Metacritic, the film received a score of 65 out of 100 based on 37 reviews.
[79]
Among the major trade publications, Todd McCarthy of
The Hollywood Reporter
described the film as "audacious, confident and fueled by youthful
energy", and said that "director Vaughn impressively maintains a strong
focus dedicated to clarity and dramatic power ... and orchestrates the
mayhem with a laudable coherence, a task made easier by a charging,
churning score by Henry Jackman...".
[80] Justin Chang of
Variety
said the film "feels swift, sleek and remarkably coherent", and that
"the visual effects designed by John Dykstra are smoothly and
imaginatively integrated..."
[81] Frank Lovece of
Film Journal International
lauded "a wickedly smart script with a multilayered theme that ...
never loses sight of its ultimate story, and makes each emotional
motivation interlock, often shockingly playing for keeps with its
characters. This is not a kids' movie."
[82]
In consumer publications,
Lisa Schwarzbaum of
Entertainment Weekly
praised "the kind of youthful, Brit-knockabout pop energy director
Matthew Vaughn absorbed from his previous collaborations as producer of
director
Guy Ritchie's
bloke-y larks", and found McAvoy and Fassbender "a casting triumph.
These two have, yes, real star magnetism, both individually and
together: They're both cool and intense, suave and unaffected, playful
and dead serious about their grand comic-book work."
[83] Peter Howell of the
Toronto Star called it "a blockbuster with brains" and said Vaughn "brings similar freshness to this comic creation as he did to
Kick-Ass, and manages to do so while hewing to the saga's serious dramatic intent."
[84] However, Betsy Sharkey of the
Los Angeles Times
bemoaned its "misplaced and misplayed ambition", and felt that its
"moments of greatness ... are fleeting, ultimately undone by a
frustrating mire of multiple plots, overreaching special effects, leaden
ancillary players and world-ending military standoffs that have all the
tension of a water balloon fight."
[85] Roger Ebert,
straddling, called it "high-tech and well-acted" but merely "competent
weekend entertainment. It is not a great comic book movie."
[86] David Denby of
The New Yorker
considered that besides the sequences where the mutants are drafted and
trained, "the rest looks and feels like a very cheesy Cold War-era B
movie, especially when the villain, Shaw, shows up grinning and wearing a
plastic helmet that prevents his mind from being read".
