One of the biggest surprises of 2011 was Fox's X-Men: First Class.  With the franchise ailing and fans weary, not many held high expectations for the film.  Yet is totally blew the critics away (us included) and was a success with the fans.  Since then, news of a sequel has been running around, but the big question has now been answered:  Matthew Vaughn will return to direct.

Following their semi announcement of a sequel to their big hit of the summer, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Fox has hired a writer for a sequel to their second biggest: X-Men: First Class. The choice, however, may not bode well.

Talking to The Playlist about the current status of The Wolverine, Australian actor Hugh Jackman says that the chances of starring in a fourth X-Men movie are slim, but reveals that we may still see Wolvie crop up in the relaunched First Class franchise!

Professor X imagines Magneto as a women while lying next to him in bed at a strip club.  Yeah, for real.

I imagine at this point, most of America has seen Captain America. Well, not me!  My theater, in all its ineptitude, has decided to bring in Zookeeper for an extended stay rather than Captain America. So I'm stuck here, on the internet, silently watching as the masses fall in love with the movie.  But even though I haven't seen it yet, I know one thing for sure; Captain America does not represent America.  He represents patriotism, but not American ideals themselves.  For some reason or another, Captain America's superhero cohorts do a better job at representing the American ideals than the big, blue, boy scout himself.  While we're not exactly proud of it, here are the eight superheroes who better represent American ideals than Captain America.  These issues are prevalent everywhere...but when describing modern America, you would be hard pressed not to mention these issues.

When it comes to superhero movies, nothing is more important than the origin story.  It sets up not just the character, but the tone and future plot points of the franchise to come (or in some cases, the movie itself).  If you botch this, then you’ve already botched the entire franchise potential (as seen from such classics as Daredevil or Punisher). And for a movie like this week’s Green Lantern, first impressions are everything.  If they don’t like the first outing, why would audiences come back for a second? Green Lantern needs to nail its origin story if it hopes to become the next big superhero franchise.  Here are eight other origin stories that Green Lantern should try to emulate if it wants to hit its mark.

With two decidedly weaker sequels (and one that’s nearly unwatchable) the X-Men franchise needed a big hit in order to pull itself back from the brink, and breath new life into the series.  That’s exactly what the filmmakers hoped to do with X-Men: First Class...and it worked.

In honor of the release of X-Men: First Class, TMP tackles the first installment in the mega hit franchise.  Have the years been kind to it, or has it aged horribly?  We weigh in.

For all intents and purposes, X-Men: First Class is a reboot.  Sure, they claim its a prequel, but other than a previously reported cameo, none of the original cast returns for this one.  And if First Class makes enough money, you can bet this will be the primary X-Men franchise.  Because of this, a whole slew of never before seen mutants are joining the team, and TMP is here to give you the lowdown on all of them.

TMP is celebrating the release of X-Men: First Class in style.  So you know what that means; time for another Movie Marathon!