X-Men: First Class is shaping up with news being dropped left and right at this point. Producer Bryan Singer told Ain’t It Cool News a bunch of news on the film project:

The movie will be set in the 1960s to coincide with the civil rights movement. It was a good decision, since it’d add more weight to the mutants’ struggle with fitting in with society. And, we will see how Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Charles Xavier met. This means we’ll see how their friendship develops, followed by how it diminishes once they realize they have opposing ideals towards humankind.

The antagonists for the film will be the Hellfire Club; a group fronted as a secret society for the wealthy, but is actually a group influencing politics and economics for their own agenda. The group is led by the White Queen Emma Frost and the Black King Sebastian Shaw. (Sebastian will be played by Kevin Bacon.) It’ll be a nice contrast to Xavier’s ideals, but I’m admittedly a little disappointed that Kevin Bacon won’t be portraying Mr. Sinister.

This time out, the costumes will lean more heavily towards the styles in the comics, which will be a welcome change for the X-Men franchise. The black leather was entirely too bland.

There’s a lot of mixed feelings over the movie due to so many characters being thrown into the mix, but the pros outweigh the cons to me. Some promising actors are attached to the project, and the fact that the silver age comics will be an influence, along with it taking place in the 60s is a huge plus.

[Cinematical]