Corona | Coming Attractions

In an exclusive phone call with AICN, producer Bryan Singer reveals loads of geeky new story details about X-Men: First Class. Among the gems are as follows:

• the story takes place in the early 1960s, and will feature a James Bond-ish feel for the X-Men gadgetry we'll see used.
• Scott Summers and Jean Grey aren't in the movie.
• Kevin Bacon is playing Sebastian Shaw, the Black King of the Hellfire Club.
• the X-Men's costumes will also be more closer to their comic book counterparts than ever before.
• the movie will have an international vibe to it, with filming taking place in England and North America. The USSR will be one of the locations depicted in the movie.
• Professor X won't be in his wheelchair when the movie opens and he will also have hair.
• we should have our first look at the costumes in about a month's time

Read the full summary at Ain't It Cool News.

Mad Men cast member January Jones has landed the part of The White Queen in the film. Also announced as new hires were Zoe Kravitz as Angel, Bill Bilner as a young Magneto and Morgan Lily as a young Mystique.

Oliver Platt joins the cast playing a character called The Man in Black. Surprisingly, Platt's character is described by the source as not being a mutant.

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.