Matthew Vaughn discusses First Class, calls it “X-Men meets Bond”

Lots of news has been coming out of the X-MEN: FIRST CLASS front of late, particularly from its own director Matthew Vaughn. The man’s been doing what feels like damage control stemming from last week’s release of this mutant group photo, to the just generally negative reactions to his film as a whole. And it seems to have been working too, as each thing Vaughn’s shown and/or told us has helped to quell fan worries.

The latest now comes courtesy of EW which had a chance to interview Vaughn. The filmmaker began by describing what we should come to expect from his one-off mutant interpretation:

“The best way of describing it is X-Men meets Bond, with a little bit of THIRTEEN DAYS thrown in for good measure. It’s set in the ’60s, and I basically molded a young Magneto on a young Sean Connery. He’s the ultimate spy – imagine Bond, but with superpowers.”

When asked about potentially angering X-fans with the liberties he’s taking with the characters and story, Vaughn had the following to say:

“I could tell those fans that they’re wrong. One thing about the X-Men world is that, if you know your X-Men universe, every writer reinvented the storyline. I did my research, and none of the histories of the characters make any sense. Each writer just totally changed the history to make their plot work. So I can quite safely say that X-Men has a history of reinventing its history for the sake of the plot.”

Vaughn then discusses the film’s two central characters, Professor X and Magneto:

“Professor X is a very hard character to cast. Out of all the characters, he’s the dullest if you really think about it. He’ll be in a wheelchair eventually, and he’s sort of a sanctimonious preacher half of the time. Patrick Stewart brought so much to that role, and I needed to get an actor who could do the same — who could give him a fourth dimension that’d make him sparkle. James was literally at the top of the list, and he said yes, so I got my first actor very quickly.”

“Magneto was a juicier role. I’ve been watching Fassbender for a long time, and I knew the guy was going to pop as a movie star. He read it and knocked it out of the park, and the rest of the cast just fell in around them.”

Vaughn as a director is batting a thousand in my book, so I can easily say that I’m not too worried about FIRST CLASS. His latest comments have only affirmed that.

Read the entire interview with Vaughn RIGHT HERE (though be careful of minor spoilers as he does go into plot specifics).