James McAvoy drops X-Men: First Class sequel hints

With X-Men: First Class blasting into cinemas worldwide this week, James McAvoy has been talking about the very real possibility of a sequel.

“Ideally you have a story arc that lasts three movies and at the end of the third it leaves you ready for the story in X-Men 1 ,” he tells Hero Complex . “It would be nice to explore things in two more films.”

Director Matthew Vaughn has also sounded keen on a First Class follow-up, having dropped hints about how a sequel could open – adding that he’d only bring one new character into the ensemble.

So will it actually happen? It all depends on if First Class makes any dough, of course.

“I keep hearing bits and bobs from the different founts that there are or the different mouths that there are on this job,” says McAvoy.

“All I know is that if this one makes some money, they will definitely want to make another one. We’ve had pretty strong critical reaction thus far.”

Should a sequel be greenlit, McAvoy has a few ideas where he’d like it to go. “I’ve lots of ideas,” he says. “I know Michael [ Fassbender ] and I are very much on the same page all the time, and we’ll be weighing in to protect that relationship between the two characters.

“The next movie, if there is one, shouldn’t just start off with them being pals again, but I think it also shouldn’t be like the first movies only set in the 1960s.

“If we get another, let’s not just make Magneto the bad guy; of course he’s a bad-ass and of course he has a whole different ethos, but making a movie that is black-and-white is going to lose the thing that we have in this one.”

X-Men: First Class is out now.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.