X-Men: First Class (stylized on-screen as X: First Class) is a 2011 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the X-Men. Directed by Matthew Vaughn and written by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Vaughn, the film stars an ensemble cast led by James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon. It is a prequel to X-Men (2000), the fifth installment in the X-Men film series, and the first film in the X-Men prequel tetralogy. X-Men: First Class is set primarily in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and focuses on the relationship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto, and the origin of their groups—the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, respectively—as they deal with the Hellfire Club led by Sebastian Shaw, a mutant supremacist bent on starting a nuclear war.
Producer Lauren Shuler Donner first thought of a prequel based on the young X-Men during the production of X2; producer Simon Kinberg later suggested to 20th Century Fox an adaptation of the comic series X-Men: First Class, although the film does not follow the comic closely. Singer, who had directed both X-Men and X2, became involved with the project in 2009, but he could only produce and co-write X-Men: First Class due to his work on other projects. Vaughn became the director and also wrote the final script with his writing partner Jane Goldman. Principal photography began in August 2010 and concluded in December, with additional filming completed in April 2011. Locations included Oxford, the Mojave Desert and Georgia, with soundstage work done in both Pinewood Studios and the 20th Century Fox stages in Los Angeles. The depiction of the 1960s drew inspiration from the James Bond films of the period.
X-Men: First Class premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on May 25, 2011, and was released in the United States on June 3. The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving positive reviews from critics, and grossing $353 million worldwide. A sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, was released in May 2014.
Plot
In 1944, at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Nazi officer Klaus Schmidt witnesses a young Erik Lehnsherr bending a metal gate with his mind upon being separated from his parents. Schmidt brings Lehnsherr into his office and tells him to move a Nazi-decorated coin on his desk. When Lehnsherr cannot do it, Schmidt kills his mother. Distraught, Lehnsherr's magnetic power manifests, destroying the room. Meanwhile, at a mansion in Westchester County, New York, young telepath Charles Xavier meets Raven, a scaly blue-skinned shapeshifter. He invites her to live with him as his sister.
In 1962, Lehnsherr tracks Schmidt while Xavier earns his doctorate from the University of Oxford. In Las Vegas, CIA officer Moira MacTaggert follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where Hendry meets with Schmidt (now called Sebastian Shaw), mutant telepath Emma Frost, cyclone-producing Riptide, and teleporter Azazel. Threatened by Shaw and teleported to the Joint War Room, Hendry advocates deploying nuclear missiles in Turkey. Shaw, an energy-absorbing mutant whose powers have kept him young, later kills Hendry.
MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they convince Director McCone that mutants exist and that Shaw is a threat. Another CIA officer sponsors the mutants and invites them to the secret "Division X" facility. MacTaggert and Xavier find Shaw as Lehnsherr attacks him, and Xavier rescues Lehnsherr from drowning before Shaw escapes. Xavier brings Lehnsherr to Division X, where they meet Hank McCoy, a mutant scientist with prehensile feet. Xavier uses McCoy's mutant-locating device, Cerebro, to seek and recruit other mutants; Angel Salvadore, Armando Muñoz, Alex Summers, and Sean Cassidy.
Xavier, Lehnsherr, and MacTaggert lead a CIA mission to the Soviet Union to capture Shaw; they instead learn from Frost that Shaw intends to start World War III, triggering mutant ascendency. Azazel, Riptide, and Shaw attack Division X, killing everyone but the mutants, whom Shaw invites to join him. Angel accepts, but when Alex and Armando retaliate, Shaw kills the latter. In Moscow, Shaw compels the generals to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba. Wearing a helmet that blocks telepathy, Shaw follows the Soviet fleet in a submarine to ensure the missiles break a U.S. blockade. In the meantime, Xavier takes the remaining recruits back to his mansion, where they focus on harnessing their abilities. McCoy believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance and manages to manufacture one, but Raven, having been persuaded by Lehnsherr, decides she does not want to hide her identity and refuses the cure. McCoy uses it on himself, but it backfires, giving him blue fur and a leonine appearance.
With McCoy piloting, the mutants and MacTaggert fly to the blockade line. Xavier uses telepathy to make a Soviet sailor destroy the missile ship, while Lehnsherr uses his magnetic powers to lift Shaw's submarine onto land. Lehnsherr grabs Shaw's helmet in battle, allowing Xavier to immobilize him. However, Lehnsherr reveals that he shares Shaw's exclusivist view of mutants but wants revenge for his mother's death. While Shaw is still immobilized, Lehnsherr kills him by slowly forcing the Nazi-decorated coin through his head.
Both fleets fire at the mutants out of fear, but Lehnsherr halts the barrage. As he redirects the fired munitions, intending to destroy the fleets, MacTaggert attempts to shoot him; one of the bullets he deflects hits Xavier's spine. Distracted by Xavier's injury, Lehnsherr lets the artillery fall into the ocean. Xavier and Lehnsherr part ways over their differing views on mutants and humans, and Lehnsherr leaves with Angel, Azazel, Riptide, and Raven. Later, a wheelchair-using Xavier returns to the mansion with his mutants to open a school. MacTaggert promises to keep Xavier's location secret, but he wipes her memories to ensure it. Meanwhile, Lehnsherr, now going by the name of Magneto and leading the Hellfire Club, frees Frost from prison.
Cast
James McAvoy as Charles Xavier (24 years):The mutant leader and founder of the X-Men. He is a close friend of Erik Lehnsherr until their differing views of mutantkind's place in humanity create a schism between them. McAvoy was Vaughn's top choice for Xavier, and, after being cast, auditioned with every actor considered for Magneto to test the duo's chemistry. McAvoy said he did not read comic books as a child, but added that he was a fan of the X-Men animated series from age ten. While he describes the older Charles Xavier as "a monk ... a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality", he says that the younger Xavier is a very different person: "It's quite fun because the complete opposite of that is an ego-fueled, sexed up self-serving dude. And not going too far with it, but he's definitely got an ego and he's definitely got a sex drive as well." McAvoy admitted to feeling similarities between Xavier/Magneto and Martin Luther King Jr./Malcolm X, stating that the film was "sort of like meeting them at a point where they are still finding out who they are and you are still seeing some of the events that shaped them." McAvoy avoided doing any callbacks to Patrick Stewart's performance as Xavier as Vaughn told him and Michael Fassbender to only take the allusion to Xavier and Magneto's old friendship in the other films as inspiration. Vaughn stated that since he considered Professor X "a bit of a pious, sanctimonious boring character, and he's got too much fucking power", the script would make young Xavier more interesting by "making him more of a rogue" who would become more responsible as his mission of finding more mutants went on. Laurence Belcher as Charles Xavier (12 years).
Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr:A Nazi hunter and mutant capable of manipulating and generating electromagnetic fields. He becomes Xavier's friend and ally until their philosophical differences create a schism between them. Fassbender auditioned for an earlier Matthew Vaughn project, and the director remembered him and sent Fassbender the X-Men script. Though Fassbender knew little of the superhero team, he became interested in the part after reading the script and familiarizing himself with Magneto in the comics. Fassbender, who considered Lehnsherr as a Machiavellian character who is neither good nor evil, watched Ian McKellen's performances to get the flavor of Magneto, but ultimately chose to "paint a new canvas" with the character, "just going my own way and working with whatever is in the comic books and the script." Looking back at the role in 2023, Fassbender admitted to Vanity Fair that what drew him to the role was the idea of Magneto being an outsider who feels that he doesn't belong, interesting him the prospect of looking for justifications for his character's monumental actions, the lengths he would be willing to go and what his motivations were, feeling that at his core, all Magneto needs is "a hug". Vaughn said Lehnsherr "is straight up cool; he's Han Solo while Professor X is Obi-Wan Kenobi". Bill Milner plays young Erik, although archived footage of Brett Morris, who previously played the same character at the same age, was reused for the beginning. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw:A mutant former Nazi scientist and the leader of the Hellfire Club, a secret society bent on taking over the world. He has the power of absorbing and redirecting kinetic and radiated energy. Vaughn first offered the part to Mark Strong, who turned it down. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner said Bacon was considered for Shaw for being an actor who could convey a villain "with different shades, that's not always clear that he's the bad guy". Vaughn added that Bacon "had that bravado that Shaw needed", while stating that the actor was his top choice along with Colin Firth, who would later work with Vaughn on the Kingsman film series. Bacon accepted the role as he was a fan of Vaughn's Kick-Ass (2010), and liked both the character of Shaw and the script, which he described as "a fresh look at the franchise, but also the comic book movies in general". The actor considered that Shaw was a sociopath to whom "the morality of the world did not apply", with producer Simon Kinberg adding that Bacon portrayed him as "somebody, who in his mind, is the hero of the movie". Bacon also said that "aside from the kind of evil side, I portrayed him as kind of a Hugh Hefner type". Vaughn discarded Shaw's look from the comics as he felt he would "look like an Austin Powers villain". Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert:A CIA agent who befriends Xavier and Lehnsherr. Byrne said she was unfamiliar with both the comics and the film series, except for "what a juggernaut of a film it was". The actress was cast late into production, which had already begun by the time she was picked for the role. MacTaggert was described by Byrne as "a woman in a man's world, she's very feisty and ambitious—you know, she's got a toughness about her which I liked".