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 and Erik Lensherr and the origin of their
groups, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. The film stars James McAvoy
as Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Lensherr. Other cast members include 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 finished in December, with additional photography
taking up up to three weeks before the film's premiere in June 2011. 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 film received positive
reviews, praising the writing and acting and considering First Class a fresh
new beginning for 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. As the Cuban Missile Crisis
ensues, with U.S. President John F. Kennedy instituting a blockade to stop the
tranfer 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 takes 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 the Nazi coin through his brain.
Fearing the mutants, the fleets fire their
missiles at them. 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 embrace his mutant
status. A wheelchair-bound Xavier and the 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, while Lensherr, in a uniform with the helmet and calling himself
Magneto, breaks Frost from confinement.
Cast
• James
McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier: The telepathic leader and founder of the
X-Men and one of Magneto's best friends until conflicts of opinion create a
rivalry between them and their teams. McAvoy admitted that he did not read
comics when he was a kid, 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. 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. Laurence Belcher played the 12-year-old Charles Xavier.
• Michael
Fassbender as Erik Lensherr / Magneto. 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. Vaughn said that Erik "is straight up
cool; he's Harrison Ford while Professor X is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bill Milner plays
the young Erik Lensherr.
• 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", 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. 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 While in the comics Shaw's power of absorbing and
redirecting kinetic and radiated energy was depicted by having Shaw grow up to
ten times his original size, First Class instead portrays it with 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.
• Rose
Byrne as Moira MacTaggert: A CIA agent. 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, 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.
• 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",despite having not seen any of the X-Men
films. The actress watched them and became a fan, which lead her to accept the
role as well, as did the prospect of working with Vaughn, McAvoy and
Fassbender. 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. 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". The actress went on a
diet and had to work out for two hours daily to keep in shape, 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. 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." 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—and Romijn herself has a brief uncredited cameo as an
adult Mystique, which Vaughn added as in-joke—the script has Raven
"becom[ing] Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn Monroe, like an older sex icon of
those times".
• 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, but dropped out after rewrites. 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". The morphed Frost, which the visual effects tried
to make look more like a faceted crystal than glass, was rotomated into Jones
in the live-action plates, while still retaining the actress' eyes and lips. 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.
• 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. 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. 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,
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. 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.
• Oliver
Platt as Man In Black Suit: A CIA agent and head of Division X, a government
agency working with the X-Men.
• Ray
Wise as the United States Secretary of State.
• 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. The animators studied slow-motion
footage dragonflies to do the wing pattern in a realistic way. To depict
flight, Zöe Kravitz stood on elevated platforms and was dangled on wires, at times
from a helicopter to allow for varied camera angles.
• 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, 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". 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 McTaggert in
the comics, Jones also tried to "look at her just a little bit
differently, you know, when I can. 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.
• 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. The visual for the
blasts employed rings similar to those of Banshee's scream, which were
concentrated in beams or rings of light which were then match moved into Till's
mimed throwing.
• 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. All of Darwin's
transformations—getting gills, turning his skin into concrete—were done through
computer graphics, with a computer-generated version of Gathegi that could
seamlessly blend in and out of the human form.
• 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. 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]. 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. 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.
• 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-speaking role of 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. 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.
• 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 William Stryker
• Brendan
Fehr as Communications Officer
• Aleksander
Krupa as a Russian Navy Captain
Hugh Jackman reprises his role as James "Logan" Howlett /
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
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.
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 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. Shuler
Donner later said the original idea was to green-light Frist Class depending on
the success of X-Men Origins: Magneto.
In 2008, Josh Schwartz was hired to write the
screenplay, while declining the possibility of directing X-Men: First Class.
Fox afterwards approached Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and X2, in October
2009. Schwartz later said Singer disconsidered his work as "he wanted to
make a very different kind of movie, with the director instead writing his own
treatment which was then developed into a new script by Jamie Moss. Singer
denied using Sheldon Turner's script for Magneto as inspiration to write his
draft of First Class, 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. Singer set the film in a period where Xavier and Magneto
were in his 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 concepts in a historical context". Shuler
Donner suggested the Hellfire Club as the villains.
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.[44] 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 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.
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. 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. Vaughn signed on as Singer's
replacement in May 2010. With his hiring, Fox announced a June 3, 2011 release
date. 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. An action scene that was to have been set in a
dream sequence with revolving rooms was scrapped after the release of
Inception.
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 Standand
Thor. 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", and do a film that was different from
the previous installments while "nodding towards" the successful
elements from those films. Vaughn compared First Class to both Batman Begins,
which restarted a franchise with an unseen approach, 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. 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.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.
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. Production then moved to Pinewood Studios in Iver, and to
Georgia in October,
including Jekyll Island,
Thunderbolt and Savannah, after sites in Louisiana, North Carolina
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. 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. Additional
location shooting took place in Russia.
A section of the plot is set in the Argentine coastal city of Villa Gesell, but was filmed elsewhere in the
country. Washington, D.C.,
the Mojave Desert and Fox's stages in Los
Angeles also served as locations. The main part of
production ended in December, but additional photography continued into April
2011, leaving only three weeks to finish the film before its scheduled premiere
in June. The tight schedule due to Fox setting a release date which needed to
be met lead Vaughn to declare that he "never worked under such time
pressure. The film cost approximately $160 million to produce before tax breaks,
with the eventual cost around $140 million.
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. 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". 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. 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. 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, with Xavier wears loose clothes, Emma Frost's costumes are white
and shimmery. Three helmets were made, two to fit Fassbinder’s head and one for
Bacon's. Both the submarine and the X-Jet were built on hydraulic sets so that
they could be rotated when the vehicles' movements.
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. 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). British company 4dMax employed special 3D scanners to digitize data of
the sets and actors which would be used by the effects companies. This allowed
for computer-generated sets such as the mirrored nuclear reactor where Magneto
battles Shaw 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, 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 spinned - 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 most of the objects young Erik throws after his mother
shot actually on location, actors and stuntmen being dangled from wires, and
using real explosions and light effects as reference for Havok's beams.
Music
Henry Jackman wrote the score, which draws
inspiration from John Barry's work in the James Bond films as "Matthew saw
Magneto as an early James Bond, we wanted to update that Barry-esque feeling
for our 21st-century". 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 reminder 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.
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. An official music video was released featuring
Take That performing the song whilst clips of the movie intersperse with the
band.
Reception
Box office
The premiere for X-Men: First Class happened
at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York
City, on May 25, 2011. 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, including $3.37 million at its Friday midnight launch. 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). 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. 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). 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. Overseas, it
raised to number two behind Kung Fu Panda 2, with $42.2 million.
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.
Critical response
The film has received 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. On Metacritic, the film received 65 out of
100 based on 37 reviews.
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. Den of Geek's Michael Leader said
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. 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.
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.... 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.... 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.
In consumer publications, Lisa Schwarzbaum of
Entertainment Weekly lauded "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 cool and intense, suave and unaffected,
playful and dead serious about their grand comic-book work. 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.
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. Roger Ebert,
straddling, called it "high-tech and well-acted" but merely
"competent weekend entertainment. It is not a great comic book movie.
