Corona | Coming Attractions

Today at a London convention actor Jason Flemyng told the public that he will be starring in  in the role of Azazel in X-Men: First Class. The actor described This character as a teleporter, which, if the movie follows the Marvel Comics' origin of Azazel, is indeed correct. In fact, the character is the father of future X-Men team member Nightcrawler.

Flemyng played the roles of Calibos in this year's remake of Clash of the Titans and also portrayed Mr. Jekyll in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie.

Also in the circle of interest is Rose Byrne from TV's Damages. She's in talks to portray Moira MacTaggart, an expert on mutations and genetics as well as the love interest of Charles Xavier. The character appeared briefly in X-Men: The Last Stand and was played by Olivia Williams.

X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn recently saw Inception and loved it but with a caveat: that film's trippy dream sequences bore too close a similarity to the ones Vaughn had been storyboarding for his film. "So it's either leave it in and look as if you're copying or change things," Vaughn told Hero Complex. "We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards."

Edi Gathegi, who played the bad vampire Laurent in the first two Twilight movies, has been cast in the role of Darwin in X-Men: First Class. The character was introduced in 2006 as part of a forgotten team of X-Men that Professor Xavier assembled before the so-called "second" team of X-Men (Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Banshee, Thunderbird, Nightcrawler.)

Darwin's mutant power is that of reactive evolution, meaning that his body will adapt to live in any difficult situation.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone, the upcoming dark comedy The Beaver) has landed the role of the young Mystique, the blue-skinned shapeshifter. The character was portrayed by Rebecca Romijn in the first X-Men trilogy of films.

Word breaks that Kevin Bacon is in negotiations to play a villain in the movie. The site that reports the news, Deadline, doesn't know the name of the bad guy.

Two new casting rumors to report concerning the new class of mutants. Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog is running a piece that actress Alice Eve, she from She's Out of My League, is in contract talks to play the White Queen, a part that was first rumored to be Rosamund Pike's. In second slot is a story coming out of Latino Review stating that young actor Caleb Landry Jones is the first choice to play a teenage Banshee, the Irish mutant whose power is to emit a sonic scream.

He's made his decision: Michael Fassbender has chosen to star in X-Men: First Class as a young Magneto.

Two actors are now newly rumored to be up for parts in First Class. Michael Fassbender, who was seen last summer in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, is supposedly in the running to play the younger Magneto. He's also up for a big part in the new Spider-Man movie in development at Sony. Both films are going to shoot at the same time so Fassbender might have to pick between the two.

The second report is that Rosamund Pike has been seen in the offices of director Matthew Vaughn and carrying a copy of a White Queen comic book. Physically the Die Another Day actress could easily pass for the real-life incarnation of Mr. Frost.

James McAvoy is the first cast member that we know to star in the film. The Scottish actor who's starred in The Last King of Scotland and the lead role in Wanted will play a twentysomething Charles Xavier, a.k.a. Professor X, in the movie.

Continuing their Kick-Ass collaboration, screenwriter Jane Goldman is now working on the X-Men: First Class script for director Matthew Vaughn.

The rumor that Matthew Vaughn had been eliminated from directing First Class has been blown apart with the official announcement by 20th Century Fox that the British helmer will make the X-Men reboot movie after all. Furthermore, Vaughn's X-Men: First Class now has an ambitious release date: June 3, 2011 -- just thirteen months from now.

Also revealed was that the Thor writing duo of Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz to perform a rewrite of the screenplay, and that Bryan Singer will indeed produce the movie (along with longtime X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg, writer of The Last Stand.)

No casting has been announced yet.

Back in 2005 Vaughn had attached to direct X-Men: The Last Stand until he left the project over personal reasons.

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa has met with Bryan Singer about possibly directing the film. Espinosa's latest movie, Snabba Cash, has attracted substantial heat from interested players in Hollywood for its crime thriller mechanics.

There's a report out there that Bryan Singer and Fox have reached an agreement that will see the X-Men director producing X-Men: First Class. Fox had been content to wait until the filmmaker's obligations to Warner Bros. to direct Jack the Giant Killer had been completed. What's changed the equation is a stellar first draft of the First Class script by Jamie Moss that's said to reboot the X-Men film franchise in a similar fashion to last summer's Star Trek reboot. The studio now wants to put the movie into production ASAP for a 2011 release.

Singer will join Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg as producers on the new mutant movie.

"This is the formative years of Xavier and Magneto, and the formation of the school and where there relationship took a wrong turn," Singer told Variety about the storyline to his new movie project. "There is a romantic element, and some of the mutants from X-Men will figure into the plot, though I don't want to say which ones. There will be a lot of new mutants and a great villain."

The news outlet also learned that Singer wrote a treatment for the film's storyline that veered away from Josh Schwartz's screenplay. Now screenwriter Jamie Moss is writing the movie's new script based on Singer's path.

So why did the director decide to come back to the superhero franchise he launched? "Whether it's Batman, Lord of the Rings or Star Trek, if the characters are good, you want to see them on their journey even if you know their destiny," Singer answered. "I put myself in the fan's position, and I think this story is something I would want to see, and so will they."

X-Men director attended tonight's Los Angeles premiere of Avatar, James Cameron's latest movie. While Singer strode down the blue carpet (in honor of Avatar's aliens) a camera crew for MySpace asked the filmmaker what was next on his agenda. "I'm ramping up to do a movie called Jack the Giant Killer at Warner Bros, and I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men: First Class Origins picture, which is kind of cool. I'm very excited." This is the first that news of Singer signing a deal to direct First Class has come out.