“All-Things-X” Lauren Shuler-Donner recently told Empire Online that Fox s planning on using the Harry Potter franchise as a template for the X-Men: First Class movie(s). She is and Fox both are definitely planning on this to be a multiple-movie undertaking given their cautiousness at approving the recent screenplay submitted by Josh Schwartz. Her plan is to show the kids getting in trouble, rebelling and going on unapproved missions/adventures that Prof. X doesn’t know about. One interesting bit she dropped was their plans to show young Cyclops as a rebel that eventually grows into being the leader of the X-Men. Remember, Cyke bounced around from a lot of orphanages and foster families before finding a home at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The movies will still have the darker tone that X2 and X3 had, but my one hope is that they manage to choose characters that make sense. Both in comics AND movie continuity. So any of the younger mutants feature in the X-Men trilogy are out (Rogue, Kitty, Iceman, Colossus, Angel, Jubilee, Psylocke, etc.) – but that leaves the way clear for Cyke, Jean, Storm, Gambit, Beast, Emma Frost, Thunderbird (Warpath’s brother who died on his second mission – it would make a good storyline to have a character die…), Forge, Banshee, Mimic, Longshot, Dazzler, Sunfire, Changeling, Polaris, Havok, Avalanche (he could go bad) – ok, I could go on for days. The bottom-line is that this could be a really good franchise if they don’t go all Wolverine on it and “nuke the fridge”…

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