I'm not sure about you, but those first couple of X-Men films hold a special place in my heart.  For one, they were actually good films and stayed as true to the source material as possible without compromising the integrity of an entirely new story.  They reached a critical balance with those films, that X3 and Wolverine didn't even come close to hitting. 

Never discouraged by bad reviews, Fox is still working on First Class (set to come out June 3, 2011) which rolls back the clock and focuses on Xavier and Eric Lensherr (Magneto) and how they go about creating the Mutant Academy and begin gathering their students.  We're hoping this story is actually decent seeing as how Bryan Singer (who did the first films) is behind the story of this one, and Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) is directing it. 

So far news, on this has been fairly marginal, and mostly dealing with the technical aspects of it.  Finally though, we get some casting news.  It looks like James McAvoy (who's done a comic film before in Wanted) will be playing the young Professor X.  It's going to be hard to fill Patrick Stewart's shoes (who was by far the most perfect choice for the first films), but I'm interested to see how McAvoy will handle the role. 

I think most fans will agree that his performance will be judged mostly by his voice (which is odd since the character is based off of a comic book).  If he can't nail the voice, and find the right tone it's going to offput a lot of people.  That's not to say he needs to imitate Stewart, but when he talks people need to listen.  That's the tone/balance he'll need to find. 

Now I'm not sure how far back they're planning on going with the storyline, so it's still up in the air as to whether McAvoy will have to shave his head for the role, but as we get closer to filming, there will undoubtedly be more details. 

-Jordan