X3, you make my life complete
Watching the Emmy's the other night, you may have said to yourself, "What the hell kind of hairstyle is Hugh Jackman wearing?" Or, if you were me (you are not), you would have said, "Ooooh -- have they started filming X3?"

The answer is yes -- production is underway, with a target release date of May 26, 2006. I'm actually quite relieved to hear it, not just because I'm looking forward to it, but with the addictiveness of this era of summer blockbusters, I need as many studio-cranked hits as they can muster. Give me the juice!

As you all know, or should know by now, I was a big fan of X2. It managed to be bigger, better (as sequels are ruled to do), more exciting, and yet kept an interesting plot without resorting to special effects to carry the tale. As such, it ended up being the best superhero film to date (beating out Spider-Man 2 by a slight margin). And of all the superhero franchises, the X-Men have unbelievably large cache of cool characters, both good and evil, to pull out. To boot, some of their storylines are legend, such as the 'Dark Phoenix' saga, referenced at the end of X2. The question is, with all these resources at the producer's disposal, what are they going to do next? In short, another large, bold movie or are they going to screw the pooch?? (In shorter, for some, when are we gonna see Gambit?)

Well, X3 started off inauspiciously with the hiring of uber-hack director Brett Ratner, instead of Bryan Singer, who is busy putting his stamp on the Superman movie series. 'Superman Returns' opens two weeks after X3's posted date, so I'm pretty sure that the schedule is rigid. Anyway, after I heard the 'Brett' news, I kinda tuned out of speculative internet sites. Until I saw THE HAIR again, and then I got curious.

XMF, a site dedicated to the next film (clued to me by Cinescape), has a lot of insider data. For instance, the cast continues to get more and more impressive, and as for the characters, the list is growing. Multiple Man has been cast as a member of 'Omega Red's faction', but according to the report on XMF, that is just one little bit of what to expect:

The brotherhood want to get to the phoenix, she is confused and about to rise. Magneto knows this, and wants to take advantage of it. He splits up his men, and decides to create diversions so the X-men can’t get to the phoenix. But he fails, because the scene clearly starts off….

Part 1 - Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Xavier, & Storm are there where Jean Grey (The Dark Phoenix) Is rising, by there surprise Magneto and Mystique are also there. Xavier and his team seem to be there to aid Jean, while the brotherhood seems to be there to corrupt. A bit of powers begin to fly, brother hood vs. x-men and at a point phoenix versus everyone.

Part 2 - Close by in the forest you can see Wolverine running, nothing was explained about that. He was probably on his way to the other older x-men. Next thing you know Omega Red, Gauntlet, Multiple Man and a bunch of Omega Red’s henchman surround him. By some sort of coincidence some sort of military ( XMF was NOT told what the name of the faction was but we do know that they have something to do with the Sentinels. ) show up and the surround all four mutants. Multiple Man multiplies and takes them on, as Gauntlet and Omega Red take on Wolverine. This scene is brotherhood diversion one.

To sum it up: Wolverine Vs Omega Red, Gauntlet, Multiple Man. Unknown faction against all the mutants. Double fight in one.

Part 3 - As said, happening at the same time, a fight at the X-mansion begins. New brotherhood members Pyro, Scarlet Witch and Avalanche approach the frontal area of the Xavier Institute. Approaching them immediately are Rogue, Ice Man, Jubilee and X-Kid. Right away conflict flares and without any explanation to why they begin to fight, it seems to of been acknowledged it wasn’t a friendly meet and greet.

Part 2 summed up: Avalanche Vs Jubilee, Pyro Vs Ice Man & Rogue/X-Kid Vs Scarlet Witch.

Part 4 - You can’t leave out the biggest and badest it seems, because when all this is going on, who would’ve thought Juggernaut was on campus as well. Luckily Colossus was around. Colossus faces off at the X-mansion with none other then Juggernaut. Good thing he had help available from x-student Kitty Pryde aka Shadow cat.

XMF was not given exact information on which team beat each team in each moment, but expect a classic x-men clash. This is the fight scene X-fans have been dying to have, and here it is. This is a rewritten perception of the information we were given. It was rewrote in a way that you guys can read it and probably enjoy it more. We were told that this scene is 7-10 minutes long, and really wasn’t a big part of the movie at all. Its looking good for X3. This is from the same source who gave us the information on Omega Red & Gauntlet, we support this 100% and can tell you this is fact, and not fiction.

Holy crossovers Batman!! The weirdest thing about all that is that Vinnie Jones has been cast as Juggernaut. Although it would be interesting to have the cockney bully play Xavier's jealous brother, Juggernaut is monstrously huge. Well, I guess they are going to use a lot of CGI or maybe even have the character be CGI (this would make sense as Kelsey Grammar is cast as the gymnastic Beast). In any event, if even 70% of this ends up being true, I'm already wringing my hands in anticipation.