When Bryan Singer left the X-Men film franchise to film the reboot of the Superman, comic fans were torn: on the one hand, he was leaving the characters he'd knocked out of the park twice already, in X-Men and X2: X-Men United, but on the other hand he was hopefully going to make Superman cool again. It's a win-win! Well, cut to a few years later, and it's a lose-lose: the retro throwback Superman Returns is underperforming at the box office and Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand is underperforming in fans' expectations. With Superman in line to get another, more reboot-y reboot, Singer is no longer involved, and is now talking to Fox about rejoining the X-Men franchise. While a small part of us would love to see a proper sequel to the first two decent X-Men movies, we mostly want him to stay far, far away. Here's why.

Tags: Bryan Singer, Superman Returns, Wolverine, X-Men

Today, the news broke that Disney has bought Marvel Entertainment, lock stock and barrel, for $4 billion. That includes Marvel Comics, with over 5,000 characters, and Marvel Studios, with the successful Iron Man and Hulk film franchises, plus the upcoming Thor, Captain America and The Avengers. It seems like it's a win-win scenario -- Disney gets a boys' brand to bookend the Disney Princesses, and Marvel gets some global multimedia clout -- but what does this really mean for our beloved Marvel superheroes? As fans, these are just a few things we're worried and/or excited about.

Tags: Disney, Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Iron Man, Marvel, merger, Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, X-Men

Casting news about Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class has been trickling out bit by bit for a while now, with various actors attached to the project and then just as quickly unattached. Aaron Johnson was rumored to play Cyclops for a while, but that didn't pan out, and then Alice Eve was rumored to play Emma Frost, the telepathic White Queen, but now she's been replaced... by January Jones. While we aren't sure the Mad Men star can channel Emma's wicked sense of humor, she certainly nails the character's regal bearing and icy demeanor every week as Betty Draper. Which got us thinking -- rather than casting the X-Men one actor at a time, why not cast the whole team in one whole swoop, using the talented cast of Mad Men? After all, the characters of Mad Men are all larger-than-life, wear snappy outfits and, like the X-Men, they first appeared in the early 1960s. Here's what we'd like to see.

Tags: Don Draper, Jon Hamm, Mad Men, X-Men, X-Men: First-Class

It looks like Disney's purchase of Marvel Entertainment has lit a fire under Fox. After all, they own the film rights to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Silver Surfer and Daredevil for as long as they continue to make movies. So, now that it's been two years since the last FF movie, they're getting ready to reboot the franchise. Frankly, I'm glad. The first film was good, clean kiddie fun (except for the fact that Jessica Alba kept taking her clothes off), but the second was boring, had Mr. Fantastic stretch-dancing and managed to make Marvel's biggest (literally) villain look like a rain cloud. Fox wouldn't say what they're doing, or even if they hope to bring back the serviceable original cast, but I hope they announce reboots of the rest of their Marvel properties (and Sony's, while they're at it), because, frankly, they all need it.

Tags: Blade, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Marvel, Punisher, re-boot, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, X-Men

Brett Ratner must really hate me. Of the top three simple pleasures I enjoy in everyday life -- food, wine and movies -- the man has to take some kind of sick pleasure in ruining at least one of them every few months. As I haven't seen him at any L.A. restaurants in a while, I suppose I wasn't that surprised to read that he's setting out to ruin yet another movie franchise that I love. I reported last week that the man who in slaughtered the third X-Men movie had just signed on to helm the 4th Beverly Hills Cop film, which will once more star Eddie Murphy. That alone was enough to put a damper on my day, but now he's revealed the icing on the cake: He's aiming to gear the film toward a PG audience.

Tags: Beverly Hills Cop, Bret Ratner, Eddie Murphy, Star Trek, X-Men

In comics and on the screen, Wolverine has been the most popular X-Man for years. In fact, it could be argued that the first two X-Men movies were de facto Wolverine films. But now he's making it official, with the first movie to actually put his name on the marquee, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Since his origin is one of the most mysterious (read: sexy) things about him, all signs point to this being a pretty amazing movie. But it's hard to tell from just the trailer, unless you're an über-nerd with a stack of Wolverine comics in your closet. Luckily, nerd-scholars Omar G. and Pablo G. are here to explain everything to us in their latest installment of "Trailers Without Pity"! See the video after the jump.

Tags: Hugh Jackman, Trailers Without Pity, Wolverine, X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

With a big box office weekend looming (Paramount hopes) with the opening of Iron Man tomorrow, the stars of other superhero franchises are coming out of the woodwork to promote their own upcoming projects. Dark Horizons has both Hugh Jackman of the X-Men offshoot X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Brandon Routh of Bryan Singer's new Superman series out seeing who can out-superhero whom on the publicity circuit.

Tags: brandon routh, bryan singer, hugh jackman, superman, wolverine, x-men

If you like your comic books with a little primetime soapy action that the Parents Television Council disapproves of, prepare to get excited: Josh Schwartz, the creator and executive producer of Gossip Girl, Chuck and The OC has just been tapped to write the next film in the X-Men franchise, X-Men: First Class. Though 20th Century Fox is keeping mum on details of the project, word has it that the film will focus on the students of Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning and could bring back some prominent characters from some of the previous X-Men films, like Rogue, Iceman, Angel and some not-so-prominent blink-and-you'd-miss-them characters like Colossus, Jubilee and Shadowcat.

Tags: Beast, Chuck, Colossus, Cyclops, Gossip Girl, Jean Grey, Josh Schwartz, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, The O.C., Wolverine, X-Men, X-Men: First Class