X-Men: First Class is a 2011 American superhero film directed by Matthew Vaughn and produced by Bryan Singer, based on the X-Men characters appearing in Marvel Comics. The fifth installment in the X-Men series, the film acts as a prequel for the X-Men trilogy, being set primarily in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It 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.

Announced in 2006, First Class entered production in August 2010 and had its principal photography finished in December, with post-production and additional photography finishing just three 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 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.

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 he 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. 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 mutation thesis. In Las Vegas, Nevada, CIA agent Moira MacTaggert follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where she sees Schmidt (now known as Sebastian Shaw), the telepathic Emma Frost, and teleporting Azazel. Threatened by Shaw and teleported by Azazel to the War Room, Hendry advocates that the U.S. install nuclear missiles in Turkey. Shaw later kills Hendry with his energy-absorbing power.

MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, convinces him and Raven to join her at the CIA, where they convince Director McCone mutants exist and Shaw is a threat. The unnamed "Man in Black Suit", another CIA executive, sponsors the mutants and invites them to the CIA's secret "Division X" facility. Xavier locates Shaw just as Lensherr is attacking him, and arrives in time to stop Lensherr from drowning as Shaw escapes. Xavier brings Lensherr to Division X, where they meet young scientist Hank McCoy, a prehensile-footed mutant, who promises Raven he will find a "cure" for their appearance. Xavier uses mutant-locating device Cerebro to find mutants to attempt to recruit against Shaw. He and Lensherr recruit stripper Angel Salvadore—along with taxi driver Armando Muñoz, Army prisoner Alex Summers, and Sean Cassidy, who code-name themselves Darwin, Havok, and Banshee, respectively—while Raven names herself Mystique. Xavier and Lensherr also attempt to recruit Wolverine, who profanely declines.

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 offering them the chance to join him. Angel accepts; when Darwin fights back, Shaw kills him. With the facility destroyed, Xavier takes the mutants to train at his family mansion. McCoy devises protective uniforms and a stealth jet. In Moscow, Shaw compels the general to have the Soviet Union install missiles in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis ensues, with U.S. President John F. Kennedy instituting a blockade to stop the transfer of missiles to Cuba. Shaw, wearing a helmet that foils Xavier's telepathy, accompanies the Soviet fleet to ensure the missiles arrive.

Raven attempts to seduce Lensherr, who convinces her to embrace her mutant nature. She then refuses McCoy's cure—a cure which backfires on McCoy, rendering him a leonine beast. Though ashamed of his new appearance, he pilots the mutants and MacTaggert to the blockade line. During the ensuing battle with Shaw, Lensherr seizes Shaw's helmet, allowing Xavier to immobilize Shaw. Lensherr tells Shaw that he shares his exclusivist view of mutants, but, to avenge his mother, kills Shaw—over Xavier's objections—by forcing his Nazi Reichsmark coin through his brain.

Fearing the mutants, the fleets fire their missiles at them, but Lensherr is able to catch them with his power and turn them back to the fleets. In a struggle, Xavier keeps Lensherr from destroying the fleets with the missiles, but when MacTaggert fires at Lensherr, a deflected bullet hits Xavier in the spine. Lensherr, remorseful, leaves with Angel, Riptide, Azazel, and Mystique, the latter telling McCoy to "proudly" embrace his mutant status. 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 the CIA later, she says she has no clear memory of recent events. Meanwhile, Lensherr, in a uniform with the helmet and calling himself Magneto, leads his new team into the CIA building and frees Frost from confinement.

Cast

• James McAvoy as Charles Xavier / Professor X: The telepathic leader and founder of the X-Men and a close friend of Lensherr until their differing views of mutantkind's place in humanity create a schism between them. McAvoy said he did not read comic books as a child, but added that he was a fan of the X-Men cartoons from the age of 10. While he describes the older Charles Xavier as "a monk... a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality", he says that the younger Xavier is a very different person. "It's quite fun because the complete opposite of that is an ego-fueled, sexed up self-serving dude. And not going too far with it, but he's definitely got an ego and he's definitely got a sex drive as well."^[4] McAvoy admitted he felt that there was a comparison between Xavier/Magneto and Martin Luther King Jr./Malcolm X stating, "A lot of the time... in the comic books, Erik comes and goes; he goes back and forward really in what he believes and how he is going to achieve it. And in this film it's sort of like meeting them at a point where they are still finding out who they are and you are still seeing some of the events that shaped them, not through their early life, but some of the key events in the sort of equal rights or civil rights struggle that helped shape them."^[5] McAvoy avoided doing any callbacks to Patrick Stewart's performance as Xavier as Vaughn told him and Michael Fassbender to only take the allusion of Xavier and Magneto's old friendship in the other movies as inspiration.^[6] Laurence Belcher played the 12-year-old Charles Xavier.^[7]
• Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr / Magneto^{[note 1]}: A mutant capable of manipulating and generating electromagnetic fields, he becomes one of Xavier's best friends until conflicts of opinion create a rivalry between them, with Lensherr afterwards founding the Brotherhood of Mutants. Fassbender said that Matthew Vaughn saw him in an audition for one of his other films and just thought that he would be right for this film. After Fassbender read the script, he said he liked it and then he tried to convince the producers that he was right for the part. As Fassbender did not know much about the X-Men, he read Magneto's history and considered the story was going to be really interesting work, and added that he saw Erik as a Machiavellian character that did not fit good or evil. Fassbender said he watched Sir Ian McKellen's performances to get the flavor of Magneto, but decided to "paint a new canvas" with the character: "So I did my homework and preparation and you want to respect what someone else has done, especially because the fan base really liked what Ian McKellen has done with it. But while I could have gone and studied him as a young man and brought that to the performance, I don't think Matthew is very interested in that. So I'm just going my own way and working with whatever is in the comic books and the script."^[8] Vaughn said that Erik "is straight up cool; he's Harrison Ford while Professor X is Obi-Wan Kenobi".^[9] Bill Milner plays the young Erik Lensherr.^[10]
• Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw: A former Nazi scientist and the leader of the Hellfire Club, a secret society bent on taking over the world. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner said that Bacon was considered for Shaw for being an actor that could convey a villain "with different shades, that's not always clear that he's the bad guy",^[11] and Bacon accepted to take the role as he was a fan of Vaughn's Kick-Ass, and liked both the character of Shaw and the script, which he described as "a fresh look at the franchise, but also the comic book movies in general".^[12] The actor added that he tried to portray Shaw as a sociopath to which "the morality of the world did not apply", as well as a "Hugh Hefner type".^[11] Vaughn discarded Shaw's look from the comics as he felt he would "look like an Austin Powers villain",^[6] and the effects team also tried another way to depict his power of absorbing and redirecting kinetic and radiated energy. While in the comics Shaw grows 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".^[9][13]
• Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert: A CIA agent.^[14] Byrne said she was unfamiliar with both the comics and the film series, except for "what a juggernaut of a film it was". The actress was cast late into production,^[15] which had already begun filming by the time she was picked for the role. MacTaggert was described by Byrne as "a woman in a man’s world, she’s very feisty and ambitious—you know, she’s got a toughness about her which I liked".^[16]
• Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme / Mystique: A shape-shifting mutant and Charles Xavier's childhood friend. After the dramatic Winter's Bone, Lawrence sought First Class to do "something a little lighter",^[17] despite having not seen any of the X-Men films. The actress watched them and became a fan, which led her to accept the role as well, as did the prospect of working with Vaughn, McAvoy and Fassbender.^[18] Vaughn said Lawrence was picked because "she could pull off the challenging dichotomy that Raven faces as she transforms into Mystique; that vulnerability that shields a powerful inner strength."^[19] Lawrence had some reluctance in her performance due to Mystique's previous portrayal by Rebecca Romijn, as she considered Romijn was "the most gorgeous person in the world",^[18] and felt their portrayals were much contrasting, with Lawrence being "sweet and naive" while Romijn was "sultry and mean".^[19] The actress went on a diet and had to work out for two hours daily to keep in shape,^[20] and for Mystique's blue form, Lawrence had to undergo an eight-hour make-up process similar to that of Romijn on the other films.^[9] 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."^[13] Morgan Lily plays the young Raven—with the actress wearing a slip-on bodysuit and facial appliances which only took one hour and a half to apply, as submitting a child actor to the extensive make-up was impractical^[21]—and Romijn herself has a brief uncredited cameo as an adult Mystique, which Vaughn added as an in-joke—the script has Raven "becom[ing] Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn Monroe, like an older sex icon of those times".^[22]
• January Jones as Emma Frost / White Queen: A telepath who can also change her body into diamond form and is a member of the Hellfire Club. Alice Eve was originally announced to play Emma Frost,^[10] but dropped out after rewrites.^[23] Jones accepted the role to get something different from her job in the TV series Mad Men, and while discovering that like the show it was set in the 1960s, "[Frost]'s so, so far from Betty and from Mad Men, and it takes place in that time but it doesn’t feel like a period movie." The actress described the revealing costumes of the character as "insane," saying, "She's got quite the bod, which is very intimidating". Jones said she did only a limited exercise routine to keep in shape, as "I'm a petite person, so I didn't want to go into a strict workout and eating regime."^[24] According to visual effects designer John 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".^[13] The morphed Frost, which the visual effects tried to make look more like a faceted crystal than glass,^[13] was rotomated into Jones in the live-action plates, while still retaining the actress' eyes and lips.^[21] 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.^[9][25]
• Nicholas Hoult as Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy / Beast: A former scientist and political activist who transformed into a frightening looking mutant in an attempt to cure himself, but is kind at heart. Broadway actor Benjamin Walker was previously cast as Beast, eventually turning down the role to star in the Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.^[26] Hoult was chosen for being "gentle with a capability of being fierce", and had to use make-up that took four hours to apply when Hank becomes the Beast, which include a mask, contact lenses, a muscle furry suit and fake teeth.^[9] As Vaughn wanted Beast to look more feral than the version Kelsey Grammer played in X-Men: The Last Stand, the redesign went through various tests, which tried to make Beast not resemble any particular animal but still look like Hoult, as well as with a furry body,^[11] which make-up artist Alec Gills, of Amalgamated Dynamics likened to "something akin to a wolf's pelt on his face, his arms-everywhere". The suits employed actual dyed fur from fox pelts.^[21] Computer graphics were used for the big simian-like feet, the transformation sequence, and a few facial replacements for when Beast opened his mouth wider than the mask allowed.^[21]
• Oliver Platt as Man In Black Suit: A CIA agent and head of Division X, a government agency working with the X-Men.^[27]
• Ray Wise as the United States Secretary of State.^[28]
• Zoë Kravitz as Angel Salvadore: A mutant with dragonfly wings and acidic saliva. The make-up team took four hours to apply Angel's wing tattoo on Kravitz, and the visual effects team had to erase the tattoo in case the scene required Angel with the computer-generated wings.^[25] The animators studied slow-motion footage of dragonflies to create the wing pattern in a realistic way,^[21] and the designers added iridescence to the wings to make them prettier.^[11] To depict flight, Kravitz stood on elevated platforms and was dangled on wires,^[9] at times from a helicopter to allow for varied camera angles.^[25]
• Caleb Landry Jones as Sean Cassidy / Banshee: A mutant capable of ultrasonic screaming, used in various ways including as a means of flight. Jones auditioned not knowing what X-Men character he was up for,^[29] saying he auditioned because it was a superhero that fit his biotype: "I've got red hair and freckles, I'm not gonna be Batman, Robin or Spider-Man".^[11] Jones also said the script defined the character more than the comics, as Banshee went through various reinventions in print. Given Banshee gets involved with MacTaggert in the comics, Jones also tried to "look at her just a little bit differently, you know, when I can."^[29] The visual of Banshee's screams was done through a digital ring-like structure based on renderings of sound waves such as Schlieren photography.^[21][25] 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,^[21] to which the actor had to spend much time in preparation with the stunt team as he suffers from acrophobia.^[9]
• Lucas Till as Alex Summers / Havok: A mutant who has the ability to absorb energy and discharge it as blasts. The producers said to Till his audition served to both Havok and Beast, and the actor replied that despite his lifelong dream of playing a superhero, "I know you'll kill me, but if I get Beast, I'm not in the movie. I'm not going through that makeup everyday [sic]."^[30] The visual for the blasts employed rings similar to those of Banshee's scream,^[25] which were concentrated in beams or rings of light which were then match moved into Till's mimed throwing.^[21]
• Edi Gathegi as Armando Muñoz / Darwin: A mutant with the power of "reactive evolution." Gathegi got interested in a role in the X-Men films after seeing X2, and had previously auditioned for Agent Zero in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He read for Banshee while auditioning for First Class, and only learned he was playing Darwin a few days prior to the shoot. Gathegi worked out and entered an eating regime to get in shape, and also researched on comics about his character.^[31] All of Darwin's transformations—getting gills, turning his skin into concrete—were done through computer graphics,^[9] with a computer-generated version of Gathegi that could seamlessly blend in and out of the human form.^[25]
• Jason Flemyng as Azazel: A Hellfire Club member who teleports. Flemyng, who had previously been considered for Beast in The Last Stand, said he did not want more make-up heavy roles after playing Calibos in Clash of the Titans, but made an exception for Azazel as he likes working with Vaughn. Due to the Cold War setting, Flemyng tried to imply that Azazel is Russian for his pleasure in killing CIA agents.^[32] The actor spent eight weeks doing sword and fight training, and had to undergo a four-hour make-up process, which like Mystique was designed by Spectral Motion — but did not include Azazel's tail, which was computer-generated, and the animators tried to make it "feel as if it was an extension of [Azazel]".^[21][33] Azazel's teleporting was made in a way it resembled the "inky smoky effects" used with Nightcrawler, who appeared in X2 and is Azazel's son in the comics.^[21] 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.^[25]
• Álex González as Janos Quested / Riptide: A mutant with the ability to create powerful whirlwinds from his hands and body. First Class marks the first English language film for Spanish actor González, who auditioned while taking English classes in London. González had forgotten that he had auditioned by the time he was called by the casting director to learn he had the role. He enjoyed playing a villain as most of his film roles in Spain were for "good guys", and likened Riptide being respectable and polite while performing fierce attacks to a hurricane—"When I see a hurricane from far, he is calm. The only thing I can see is a kind of tube. But from inside, up close, it is really dangerous."^[34] Since the visible part of whirlwinds are the dust and dirt sucked up by them, the ones Riptide produces were likened to "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.^[21]
• Glenn Morshower as Col. Hendry
• Matt Craven as CIA Director McCone
• Rade Sherbedgia as Russian General
• Michael Ironside as a U.S. Navy Captain
• James Remar as a U.S. General
• Annabelle Wallis as Amy: A young woman Xavier flirts with in a bar after observing she has heterochromia
• Don Creech as Agent Stryker: A CIA Agent who is the father of Colonel William Stryker, the antagonist of X2 and Wolverine.^[18]
• Brendan Fehr as Communications Officer
• Aleksander Krupa as a Russian Navy Captain

Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine in an uncredited cameo in a bar, dismissing an approach by Xavier and Lensherr to join them. Jackman said he accepted the offer to appear because "it sounded perfect to me", particularly for Wolverine being the only character with a swear word. The cameo took about eight takes during a two-hour shoot on the Fox Studios lot in Los Angeles, and the actor changed his line in an ad-lib from "fuck off" to "go fuck yourself".^[35]

Production

Development

During the production of X2, producer Lauren Shuler Donner discussed with the crew on "how funny" the idea for a film focusing on the young X-Men would be, and was met with approval. This was revived during the production of X-Men: The Last Stand.^[11] 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."^[38]

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 that the producers wanted an adaptation that would introduce new characters. Both Kinberg and Shuler Donner said they wanted characters with visuals and powers that had not been seen yet, and that worked well as an ensemble even if they did not work together in the comics.^[11] Shuler Donner later said the original idea was to green-light First Class depending on the success of X-Men Origins: Magneto.^[39]

In 2008, Josh Schwartz was hired to write the screenplay, while declining the possibility of directing X-Men: First Class.^[40] Fox afterwards approached Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and X2, in October 2009.^[41] Schwartz later said Singer disconsidered his work as "he wanted to make a very different kind of movie",^[42] with the director instead writing his own treatment which was then developed into a new script by Jamie Moss.^[41] Singer denied using Sheldon Turner's script for Magneto as inspiration to write his draft of First Class,^[43] 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.^[44] Singer set the film in a period where Xavier and Magneto were in their twenties, and seeing 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.^[11]

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 two centered the film in Xavier and Magneto's relationship, and wrote the other characters and storylines in the terms of "how they fit in the tension between Erik and Charles".^[11] 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][47]

The producers listed various possible directors, but at first did not consider Matthew Vaughn because he started working in The Last Stand but backed out. Once Kinberg saw Vaughn's satirical superhero film Kick-Ass, he decided to contact Vaughn to see if he was interested in First Class.^[11] When Fox invited Vaughn for the "chance to reboot X-Men and put your stamp all over it", he first thought the studio was joking, but he accepted due to the 1960s setting.^[48] Vaughn signed on as Singer's replacement in May 2010. With his hiring, Fox announced a June 3, 2011 release date.^[49] 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.^[11] An action scene that was to have been set in a dream sequence with revolving rooms was scrapped after the release of Inception.^[50]

Describing his thought process toward the material, Vaughn said he was motivated by "unfinished business" with Marvel, as he was involved with the production of both X-Men: The Last Stand^[48] and Thor.^[51] Vaughn declared that he was more enthusiastic with First Class than with The Last Stand for not needing to keep on with somebody's work, but having the opportunity to "start fresh",^[51] and do a film that was different from the previous installments while "nodding towards" the successful elements from those films.^[51] Vaughn compared First Class to both Batman Begins, which restarted a franchise with an unseen approach,^[52] 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.^[53] Regarding continuity, Vaughn said that 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".^[51] 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.^[54]

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, lasting for two days.^[55] Production then moved to Pinewood Studios in Iver,^[56] and to Georgia in October, including Jekyll Island, Thunderbolt and Savannah,^[57] after sites in Louisiana, North Carolina^[58] and West Michigan were considered.^[59] 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.^[58] Palm trees were buried into the island's sand so 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.^[25] Additional location shooting took place in Russia.^[60] A section of the plot is set in the Argentine coastal city of Villa Gesell, but was filmed elsewhere in the country.^[21][61] Washington, D.C., the Mojave Desert and Fox's stages in Los Angeles also served as locations.^[21] 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.^[11] Principal photography ended in December, but additional photography continued into April 2011, leaving only three weeks to finish the film before its scheduled premiere in June.^[62] The tight schedule due to having to meet Fox's previously set release date lead Vaughn to declare that he "never worked under such time pressure".^[63] The film cost approximately $160 million to produce before 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 adding to the international feel of the characters.^[60] Kinberg said that 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. Both the submarine and the X-Jet were built on hydraulic sets so that they could be rotated for the vehicles' movements.^[11] 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."^[6] 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."^[11]

Vaughn said he shot the film in anamorphic "to create a widescreen experience, which is emblematic of '60s movies, such as the James Bond films".^[21] The director had to hire five cinematographers and four assistant directors to successfully convey the look he wanted for the film.^[6] 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."^[21] 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. Three versions of Shaw's helmet were made, two to fit Fassbender's head and one for Bacon's.^[11]

Effects

First Class employed 1,150 shots of visual effects,^[13] which were done by six companies:^[21] 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 climatic battle in Cuba.^[25] 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)."^[13] British company 4dMax employed special 3D scanners to digitize data of the sets and actors which would be used by the effects companies.^[21] This allowed for computer-generated sets such as the mirrored nuclear reactor where Magneto battles Shaw^[13] — to which the effects team used the mirror maze fight in Enter the Dragon as a reference—and the dome lab walls of Cerebro. Digital models of Washington and Moscow were also created based on photographs of the actual cities,^[25] 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 in 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, and a certain Soviet cruiser was a larger version of the Kresta I and II, leading Weta to dub it the Kresta III.^[21] 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.^[9]

Music

Henry Jackman, who had worked with Vaughn in Kick-Ass, wrote the score. Following the James Bond influences on First Class, Jackman drew inspiration from John Barry's work in said series, which he described as "extremely posh pop music".^[11] Jackman started his work with a "Superman-style theme", which is only featured in the final parts of the film as Vaughn thought it was too "successful and triumphant" for a disjointed and up-and-coming team. So for the remainder of the film, Vaughn reworked the theme into a stretched version in half time. The themes for Magneto and Shaw have similarities to reflect their "perverted father-son" relationship, with even a seamless transition during the scene where Shaw is killed to represent Lensherr's full transformation into Magneto.^[66][67]

The British band Take That provided the film's official song, "Love Love", played during the end credits. Frontman and songwriter Gary Barlow said that the song was picked by Vaughn—who had previously featured the band's hit single "Rule The World" in Stardust—during a visit to Barlow's house, as the director "felt it summed up the tone of the movie."^[68][69]

Release and reception

Box office

The premiere for X-Men: First Class happened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, on May 25, 2011.^[70] A week later, on June 3, the film had its wide opening. 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,^[71][72] including $3.37 million at its Friday midnight launch.^[73] 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 it was slightly higher than the original film ($54.5 million).^[72] Executives at 20th Century Fox said they 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.^[71] 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).^[74] In its second weekend X-Men: First Class dropped 56.2%, the second smallest second weekend drop in the franchise behind X-2: X-Men United (53.2%), and came in with an estimated $24.1 million, in second place to Super 8.^[75] Overseas, it raised to number two behind Kung Fu Panda 2, with $42.2 million.^[76]

The film grossed $146,408,305 in the United States and Canada as well as $207,215,819 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $353,624,124.^[3]

Critical response

The film had strongly positive reviews, with the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes showing 87% freshness and a rating of 7.4/10 from 231 reviews counted as of November 15, 2011, the consensus being "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."^[77] On Metacritic, the film received 65 out of 100 based on 37 reviews.^[78]

Before May 24, the movie was screened for Internet film critics. Brendan Connelly of BleedingCool.com said it "contains some of the briskest and most efficient storytelling I've seen in any recent blockbuster. An awful lot happens, and awfully quickly at times, but it's all clear and while some nice moments might be over in the blink of an eye, this can only reward repeat viewers."^[79] Den of Geek's Michael Leader considered that "despite all the ropey posters and off-putting promo material, X-Men: First Class manages to be a summer movie with something to say. Let's just hope they don’t run this one into the ground, too, because I dread seeing an X-Men: Economy Class down the line."^[80] However, Simon Miraudo of Quickflix.com was less favorable, stating that "just when [Vaughn] starts to have a little fun, you can practically feel him pull back, lest he get too campy or weird."^[81]

Among the major trade publications, Tod 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...."^[82] 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...."^[83] 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, unless your kid is comfortable with an opening ten-minute sequence set in a harrowing World War II concentration camp and told entirely in subtitled German."^[84]

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."^[85] 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."^[86] 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."^[87] Roger Ebert, straddling, called it "high-tech and well-acted" but merely "competent weekend entertainment. It is not a great comic book movie."^[88]

Awards and nominations

Home media

X-Men: First Class was released on DVD and Blu-ray September 9, 2011 in the US, and in the UK on October 31, 2011.^[94][95] The home release topped the sales charts in the United States^[96] with approximately 385,000 DVDs.^[97] Blu-ray accounted for 60 percent of first-week disc sales, amounting to about 575,000 discs.^[98] In the UK it sold 150,000 units.^[99]

Sequel

Fox envisions X-Men: First Class as the first film of a new trilogy.^[47] Simon Kinberg, who co-wrote X-Men: The Last Stand and co-produced X-Men: First Class, will write the sequel.^[100] It has been confirmed that both Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer will return to direct and produce the sequel, respectively.^[101] The sequel is set to go into production in January 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence has finished shooting the film adaptation of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games.^[102]

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• X-Men: First Class at the Internet Movie Database
• X-Men: First Class at AllRovi
• X-Men: First Class at Box Office Mojo
• Kit, Boris (April 29, 2011). "'X-Men: First Class' Writing Credits Appeal Denied". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on May 31, 2011. class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved May 11, 2011.