Who’s on Fox’s wish list to direct X-Men: First Class?

Fox is intent on prequelizing Marvel’s mutants (thereby retaining the property rights) with X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. But with Bryan Singer returning only in a producer capacity, the studio is hot to get a qualified candidate in the director’s chair.

EW first floated the story that KICK-ASS director Matthew Vaughn was in talks to direct, but Heat Vision says he’s already moved on (and after all the reported friction on the last adamantium-clawed X-MEN prequel, why wouldn’t he?). You may recall that Vaughn already had a relationship with the mutants — he was the original director for X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and bolted the project just a couple of weeks before filming started. But hey, we got Brett Ratner instead, so… yeah.

Meanwhile, Heat Vision claims that Swedish director Daniel Espinosa has been talking with Singer about wrangling Xavier’s young students. While not really known the general audiences in the US, Espinosa is apparently a hot Hollywood commodity thanks to a crime thriller called SNABBA CASH.

And Deadline says that Fox’s group of hopefuls also includes Timur Bekmambetov, Louis Leterrier, David Slade and Carl Erick Rinsch.

Writer Jamie Moss (STREET KINGS) wrote a draft of the script based on Singer’s treatment, involving younger versions of familiar characters (Cyclops, Beast, Jean Grey) at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, along with Professor X’s earliest encounter with Magneto. The script will likely go through a few more changes when a director officially gets involved.