X-Men

December 1999 News:

30 December, 1999

Don't you hate it when something is hidden right out in the open? That's the case with Magneto's costume for the movie. Ian McKellan's website has a picture of him in costume taken as a test shot. It also has a shot of him out of costume taken during the shooting. For your convenience you can see them both below. The costume appears very similar to the sketch from a couple weeks ago. Now remember, this is a very early test photo of the costume. It is not the final design. It merely shows where they are headed with the design, so don't get nuts if you don't like the way it looks.

17 December, 1999

Even more pictures for your drooling or bitching pleasure today. These are design sketches for costumes worn by Magneto and Cyclops. Looking at Magneto's costume you'll notice the helmet pictured here perfectly matches the one appearing in the photograph a couple days ago. That should be a strong indication that this is one of the costumes we'll see Magneto wearing. All indications so far are that there are multiple outfits, so don't start freaking out if this one doesn't do it for you. Cyclps costume bears pretty much no resemblance to the one depicted in the comics. It mostly looks like an outfit you might wear to ride a motorcycle.

15 December, 1999

The first official picture has appeared, courtesy of Cinescape. The image shows director Bryan Singer and Magneto's helmet. The helmet bears a resemblance to the one depicted in the comics but it is by no means a duplicate. When I first saw it a few minutes ago I was definitely disappointed by it. However after staring at the image for a few minutes I find that it's growing on me. I suspect that's the real problem people seem to be having with the whole costumes issue. We're used to seeing certain costumes on these characters. We've seen them this way for years. Now when the characters come to the big screen they suddenly look different. That shock makes a lot of people say they look bad. Maybe they will look bad, I haven't seen them so I can't say yet. But if this helmet is an indicator I don't think we're in for a bad set of designs. They just need a little time to grow on us.

8 December, 1999

Fox has finally selected the special effects companies for the X-Men project. You'll notice that is plural. Seven different companies will be working to create the movie's special effects. Digital Domain, Kleiser Walczak Construction, Cinesite, Hammerhead Productions, Matte World, CORE, and POP will create hundereds of FX shots for the movie.

Fox is using different companies for different types of effects. This way each company can work to its strength. The hope is that this will help keep the costs down. The project has a $70 million budget. That is up slightly from the expected $65 million. Michael Fink (Mars Attacks!) has the task of making all these companies create a unified vision as the movie's effects supervisor.

7 December, 1999

Maybe we won't be getting that sneak peek after all. It seems that Fox is getting cold feet on the prospect of releasing an X-Men teaser trailer in front of Bicentennial Man. Unsure if the proper visuals were in place to make a great trailer they decided to cancel the early teaser. It was considered safer to wait than make a possible marketing blunder with a potentially bad trailer. There is no immiediate plan to compensate eager fans. Production is still under way in Toronto and should finish up shooting there around February.

This is probably a good idea. I admit I'm eager to get that early look at the movie but I'd rather wait than see a lousy trailer. A similar mistake was made earlier this year on Deep Blue Sea. They released an early trailer that really sucked hard. As a result people were expecting a bad movie long before it was released. That almost certainly hurt its box office receipts.

With the trailer delayed, could the movie be pushed back as well? AICN is reporting that Fox is also pushing the release date back to July 14, 2000. Presumably this is to allow more time to finish the movie. It's pretty much rumor at this point so don't take it too seriously.

1 December, 1999

Would you believe a teaser for this movie isn't far away? Even though principal photography is still very much underway, Fox is planning on attaching a teaser trailer to copies of Robin Williams' new movie Bicentennial Man. That movie is going to be released December 17. If this is true we should be getting a surprisingly early glimpse at the movie. Very cool news indeed.

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