It might sound like stating the obvious, but big budget blockbuster movies with plenty of visual effects tend to take a lot of time to put together. There are exceptions to the rule, though, and Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class is definitely one of the standouts.
For the most part, the average lifespan of a franchise-driven project is roughly 18 months from the first day of shooting to the day the final product hits theaters. That’s fair when the filming schedule lasts for months in and of itself, then there’s the lengthy post-production process for editing, VFX, scoring and the like, without mentioning any reshoots that may be required.
However, the fact First Class still ranks as one of the finest installments in the 13-film X-Men series remains nothing short of astonishing when you consider just how quickly Vaughn managed to drag it across the finish line. The first day of shooting took place on August 31, 2010, and the world premiere rolled out the red carpet less than nine months later on May 25, 2011.
To name an very recent example in the same genre, The Marvels lands on the big screen exactly 12 months from tomorrow, but reshoots are already underway after principal photography initially ran from August 2021 to May of this year. What the MCU sequel is doing in 23 months, First Class managed in under nine, which is mind-blowing.
Over a decade later and the 1960s-set caper is still drawing in a crowd on streaming, too, with FlixPatrol revealing that iTunes subscribers have been taking a trip into the past to revisit the origin story of the rivalry between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr for themselves.