Jane Goldman Talks ‘X-Men: First Class’ Sequel and the World of ‘Nonplayer’

By  · Published on February 11th, 2012

X-Men: First Class ended up being the miracle of last summer. With the quick production schedule and the less-said-about-it-the-better X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, who would’ve thought we’d get the best in the series yet? Well, we did. If you’ve seen the first three films of the franchise, you really don’t have to be an analytical comic book nerd to notice a few continuity problems. Or, if you want to look at it in a brighter and more logical light, it was Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and the brass at Fox starting anew.

With Vaughn recently announced to helm the sequel to his poppy origin story, hopefully he’ll continue to build a new X-Men film universe. Who wouldn’t want to see characters like Gambit and Angel all finally given justice, and in the 1970s nonetheless? I would. Whether or not that’ll happen is still up in the air, but it seems plausible.

Although Jane Goldman isn’t officially attatched to pen the sequel and she’s got plenty of other projects on her schedule, I couldn’t help but to discuss the potential of a sequel, as well as her plans for Nate Simpson’s Nonyplayer:

You’re working on a lot of projects and I’m not sure if you’re attatched to write the sequel, but, if you do, would you ever consider bringing back, say, Cyclops or Jean Grey?

You know, I can always make suggestions, and I did last time. Ultimately, those decisions come down to someone other than me. Would I, personally? Well, it’s really tricky. I think the route we had gone down with First Class ‐ it’s sort of a question of where to go next, and I think those two characters were very strong, especially having [Michael] Fassbender and [James] McAvoy play them so brilliantly. In a comic sense, I still think there’s room for an X-Men [film] with the original X-Men [Laughs]. In terms of how they fit in this new universe that First Class kicked off, I don’t know. I mean, yes, I think there’s room for that. All sorts of ideas have been talked about and Matthew has some particular ideas, and, in this case, all of those decisions will be done through Matthew.

I think the style of the film really set it up apart from the other X-Men films, where it felt like a new universe.

I definitely think so, and I think that was Matthew’s intention. I think there were moments where there was continuity with the other X-Men movie universe, and there were moments it was apart from that. I think it was the right way to go, for Matthew to make it a separate entity.

I know this was just recently announced and I’m not sure if you’ve started writing it yet, but how’s the process been on Nonplayer so far, in creating a whole world on the page?

It’s been fascinating and has new challenges, which is great. The first issue is absolutely brilliant, and I just fell in love with it the minute I saw it. The rest of the arc that they have right now is absolutely genius, and it has so many ideas in it. The first one you don’t really get a sense of how much is going to be in the story and how many weird, cool technology ideas are in there. Actually, it’s kind of wrestling with things like ‐ it’s not just introducing the idea that there’s one particular game people play, but it’s about six completely new and different technologies I have not seen invented in a film before, at all. My gosh, how do you introduce all of those elements? In fact, a lot of them are just very, very cool background elements. It’s a challenge of introducing something, and making it feel natural. It’s not like you have an outsider coming in from another place or another time, where you can go, “Yeah, this is a so-and-so, and it does this!” You have to find a natural place within the story to introduce these perfectly cool futuristic concepts. I’m really, really excited by it. I’m looking forward to getting back to that one.

Make sure to check back in the next few days for our full interview with Jane Goldman.

Longtime FSR contributor Jack Giroux likes movies. He thinks they're swell.