'X-Men: First Class' Pics Plus Vaughn & Bacon Interviews

The other day Action News showed you the controversial leaked pic of the X-Men: First Class lineup, and while the character shots are real, the pic was completely unauthorized by Fox or director Matthew Vaughn. Which is an epic fail for the flick, because I'm pretty sure this picture did not give the movie the first look it was going for. 


/Film has an interview with Vaughn as well as some shots he released:


“I freaked out on them yesterday. I don’t know where the hell that came from. I don’t think it’s a Fox image. It’s not a pre-approved image. When I found out, I said, what the fuck is this shit, and Fox is running around trying to figure out what happened as well. I agree. It’s like a bad photoshop, which maybe it was by someone. It didn’t reflect the movie. I was shocked when I saw it. I was like ‘Jesus Christ’…


“I’m a fan of X-Men. We’re not bastardizing X-Men, I’m trying to get them back to being whole again.


The costumes are blue and yellow as well, because fuck it, lets take it back it the original. Also, by the way, those costumes are hardly in the movie. The main costumes are like these cool 60’s James Bond…”


It's refreshing to hear him talk about the X-Men that way, because I will say I wasn't impressed by the leaked pic at all. Here's the shots of Michael Fassbender in full on Magneto get-up (kinda) and James McAvoy Vulcan Mind-Melding somebody followed by more of the interview:

“Imagine the Cuban Missile crisis and discovering that mutants exist, both at the same time.” … “The actors are so great. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are very very hard to replace. When I’m watching Fassbender and McAvoy you just think, it sort of reminds me of Daniel Craig doing Bond, you kind of forget there were other people playing him. And that’s what I feel about these two.”


“It’s definitely more serious and more realistic, and I think that’s something that had to happen. That’s my feeling about the world we live in right now. I think the glossy colorful superhero film sorta had its day. I think Batman Begins started it, Dark Knight, dare I say Kick-Ass was fun and it had some real pop to it, but at the same time we grounded it in reality as much as possible. I think that’s what the audience wants. And that why that image is more Fantastic Four than it is X-Men. And I say that with all due respect to the Fantastic Four team. That was then and this is now. It’s a different time. I mean, look at me — I’m not exactly mister light.”


You can check out more of the interview at the link above. Here are a few more stills that were released recently:

Speaking of Kevin Bacon, Splashpage has an interview with Sebastian Shaw himself which you can read in full here:

1. Sebastian Shaw will not look like he does in comics.


“My look is very different from the guy in the comic books. We decided pretty early on that that was not going to translate to film. But there's a certain kind of style to the suits that I wear, but I don't have anything extreme in the makeup department.”


2. Asked about “Inception”-rivaling special effect scenes, Bacon recalls one in particular.


“We do have a really, really super cool scene in a hall of mirrors and that's going to be really spectacular.”


3. The Hellfire submarine is a set in the film.


“I've only seen the sets that I've been on and they are really interesting and very '60s modern and super cool, and beautiful. I have one set that's kind of like an inner sanctum and then I also have a submarine…”


4. Bacon puts the prequel in historical perspective.


“The backdrop is the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it's a little earlier than the Civil Rights era. I don't think JFK is a character in the movie, but the idea of the possibility of thermonuclear war in our own backyard is there.”


5. Finally, prodded for the coolest part of “First Class”, the prolific actor describes seeing a mutant team during its drunk and promiscuous college years.


“When you see them become what we know of as the X-Men, to me, that's really cool. The visual stuff, I can't say, until I've seen the effects. But from a plot standpoint, watching the creation of that kind of elite squad and yet they're all in this college dorm room kind of atmosphere, where there's romances and drunken parties and people become friends and then they have a falling out."


So I'm feeling a little better about this movie, but still quite hesitant to get all giddy over it, so we will wait for more. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a teaser trailer during the Superbowl. Speaking of teaser (Do I say that too much?), this poster was also released over at AICN: