The best X-Men movie to date? That'd be the Bryan Singer-directed X2, which had us salivating for where he'd take the franchise next. Turns out he took it to Brett Ratner's house, who took up the reins on X-Men 3. Singer, meanwhile, failed to spark the Superman franchise back into life with Superman Returns. And his latest project, the Tom Cruise-starrer Valkyrie, didn't set the world alight in quite the way that was expected either.

Nonetheless, Singer is, on his day, a terrific director, and at the premiere for Avatar, he confirmed to a MySpace interviewer that he had just signed up for a new movie. That film? X-Men: First Class. In his words, "I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men: First Class Origins pictures, which is kind of cool."

Cool, indeed. X-Men: First Class is one of the many X-Men movies currently in development, with Wolverine 2 still expected to be next out of the gate (ahead of Ryan Reynold's Deadpool spin off). The hiring of Singer, however, moves First Class right up the queue. It'll tell the story of the early years of many of the mutants, and fulfils, we suspect, the remit to offer a teen-based superhero movie (although let's not forget next year's Kick-Ass. How we can't wait for that film).

There's no word on when First Class will go into production, but it's at least a year or so away, given that Singer has a commitment to direct another project first.

Might we also suggest that this marks the formal end of the relationship between Singer and the Superman franchise too?

You'll find the interview here, although you need to hit the next slide button and then fast forward a bit to get to it...