Last year Fox defied all expectations by releasing not one, but two successful prequels to franchises they seemingly had run into the ground. Not only were these properties reeling from recent mishandling, Fox itself has a poor recent history with quality genre, and blockbuster films.

So when X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes both turned out to be so good, people were shocked. Sequels to these prequels were a forgone conclusion and now thanks to the diligent folks at Box Office Mojo we have dates for both.

The Apes sequel is working under the title Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and is going to be coming first, May 23rd, 2014. Not much is known about the movie just yet, but it is safe to assume based on the working title the movie will have something to do with Ceaser building an Ape community that will eventually kill nearly all the humans on earth.

The X-Men sequel will stake a claim in one of the last prime weekends of the Summer season, July 18th, 2014. The movie is thought to be about Magneto’s further fall into villainy, which is a great angle to play when you have such a great actor in the roll. The primary cast is expected to return, but with production not beginning until next year it might be some time before that is confirmed.

Now that Hunger Games shattered tons of records, making it the biggest film in the past few years, other studios are doing what they can to compensate for the massive train which will be the production of the rest of the Hunger Games trilogy.

The first in that line is Fox, as they’re moving the start time for production on Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class’s sequel. From THR:

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Fox is informing talent agencies Thursday that the studio plans to begin shooting its in-development sequel to X-Men: First Class in January. That means Lionsgate could move forward with an August-September start date for the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire without a conflict for Lawrence, who is set to star in both. 

Those of you who caught last year’s break-out superhero film, X-Men: First Class, most likely developed a totally normal man-crush for a certain featured actor in the film. Believe it or not, it wasn’t for former heartthrobs James McAvoy or Kevin Bacon. The standout role in the film clearly went to Michael Fassbender, who played Eric “Call me Magneto” Lensherr.

Fassbender was slightly less known before the role, and is quickly becoming a big player in the competition for leading man in Hollywood. It seems that even First Class scribe Simon Kinberg agrees, and plans on expanding Fassbender’s story a bit more for the proposed sequel which he’s working on now. From MTV.

What’s what was so cool about the first one and what we want to continue. Magneto becomes the villain ultimately of the franchise but he’s a much more complicated character as a young man. He’s someone you sympathize with, you care about you root for even though might not necessarily agree with his methods, you understand his philosophy.

As a fan of all-things X-Men I was slightly worried about a movie featuring the origin of the group and the lives of the young and future X-Men. Turns out I really had nothing to worry about because X-Men: First Class was awesome and director Matthew Vaughn did a bang up job.

Now, the movie is soon to arrive on Blu-ray, which is the only way to see it. We’ve got all the info on this release for you below, straight from the official press release. Plus, read carefully (especially if you’re attending Comic-Con in San Diego) for a special prize commemorating the film’s arrival on Blu-ray.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

The Ultimate Blu-ray and DVD Experience Arrives on First Class Friday, September 9th

BONUS OFFER: First 1,000 Fans to Pre-Order A Blu-ray or DVD

During San Diego Comic-Con Receive a Limited Edition X-MEN: FIRST CLASS T-Shirt!

Riding on the success and awesomeness of X-Men: First Class, Marvel has decided to continue in the trend of “retro heroes” as they go all the way back to the end of the second World War with Avengers 1959.

The series will give us some great moments that we remember fondly in history with that special Marvel twist and some great heroic moments with our favorites like Nick Fury, Punisher, Sabertooth, and more. Here’s the press release:

Spinning out from the pages of New Avengers, Marvel is pleased to announce Avengers 1959 #1 (of 5), a brand new mini-series from comics legend Howard Chaykin, this fall! An unique team of super powered individuals of the post-World War II era including,  Sabretooth, Kraven the Hunter and Namora, must combat threats in New York, Madripoor, and everywhere in between!

“I’m grabbing what feels like a brass ring here, with the opportunity to do an untold story of the lost years of the Marvel Universe,” explained Chaykin. “In a follow up to the sensational stuff laid out by Brian Bendis in NEW AVENGERS, we’ll follow Nick Fury and his Avengers around the world as they track down and take down super powered survivors of the Third Reich–as their ever effort is countermanded by a mysterious agency with a dark agenda of its own.”

A pretty action packed series, you can expect to catch the first of five issues hit shelves and comic book stores everywhere this October.

Here we are, less than a month into one of the biggest summer blockbuster seasons we’ve had in years, and not a single big-studio film has failed to live up to the expectations set forward by those studios.

It seems that the mid $50 million range is just where every film hits in the first weekend, as Warner Bros’ Green Lantern pulled in an estimated $52 million against its $200 million production budget. Not a complete letdown, as Warner’s are still looking to move forward with this toyetic film franchise.

In second place this weekend, Super 8 had less than a 50% dropoff from last week, pulling in an estimated $21 million this weekend, and topping the film off at $72 since its debut.

Another first weekender, Mr. Popper’s Penguins rose to the occasion in third place this weekend with an estimated $18 million, which isn’t bad considering the film was one of the only non-franchise family films hitting theaters this summer.

Finally, Fox’s X-Men: First Class is still holding strong in its third week, with an $11 million pull for the weekend and over $280 million worldwide since the release. With a turnout like that, you can expect to see Fox prepping Matthew Vaughn and his cast for a second film in the very near future.

All things considered, next week looks to be quite tame. Pixar’s Cars 2 will likely take the weekend, with upwards of 4,000 theaters showing the film. On the other end of the spectrum, adults get Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in Bad Teacher from Sony.

While most analysts thought that the famous team-up of JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg would be box office gold, but it looked like the film failed to draw a massive audience, as Super 8 only opened to an estimated $38 million this weekend.

The film only cost roughly $50 million to make, so the profit margin is larger than it would be on a bigger blockbuster. With critics knocking last week’s X-Men: First Class opening weekend draw of $55 million, this measly $38 million is just that. It turns out mediocre marketing and nameless on-screen talent isn’t all you need to have a big box office weekend.

After it’s big(ger) first weekend, First Class dropped about fifty percent, bringing it to $25 million in the domestic box office and almost $100 million worldwide since last weekend. Coming up in third place this week is the ever popular The Hangover Part 2 with an estimated $18 million.

Next week, we expect big things for the box office as Warner Bros’ Green Lantern opens in over 3,000 screens, and is one fourth of the big superhero blockbusters of 2011.

With Fox’s reboot of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: First Class, tallying upwards of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes going into the weekend, it was no surprise that the film would take the number one spot in the Domestic box office. It was, however, a surprise that the film has the lowest opening weekend total of the entire X franchise.

The film totaled an estimated $56 million domestic, with an estimated $120 worldwide. The film still made $2 million more than the first film back in 2000, which made $54 million. That’s a bit different than the numbers we’re used to, as that 54 is more like $79 million adjusted to today’s ticket inflation.

Still, the film has legs and it will most likely retain its audience next weekend by word of mouth alone.

For those keeping count, X-Men: First Class is the fifth film in the X-Men series and, chronologically, the first. It opens with the same sequence of a young Erik Lensherr in a Nazi concentration camp, wrenched from his parents and twisting the metal gates, as in the original X-Men film, but expands on the events immediately following: Erik is brought before Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who tries to harness Erik’s gift by promptly shooting his mother. Across the world, a young Charles Xavier, possessing the gift of mind-reading, catches the shapeshifter Mystique breaking into his family mansion.

Fast-forward to 20-some years later, it’s 1962 and Charles (now played by James McAvoy) is a prominent biologist at Oxford whose work focuses on genetic mutation; Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is working as a waitress and posing as Xavier’s sister; Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is hunting down the Nazi scientists who killed his family; and Shaw is now leading a terrorist organization known as the Hellfire Club, aided by his henchmen Emma Frost (January Jones), who also has the power to read minds as well as morph into a sexy diamond, and the demonic-looking Azazel (Jason Flyming), who can teleport as well as impale victims on his pointy tail; finally, there’s Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), a CIA agent who’s hunting down Shaw.

MacTaggert’s investigation uncovers Shaw and his merry band of mutants, which leads her to team up with Xavier and take the villains on aboard Shaw’s yacht, right in step with Lensherr. Shaw escapes, and MacTaggert, Xavier, and Lensherr head back to the CIA, where the three set up a mutant task force (the gathering of which is one of the movie’s best scenes) to save the world.

While we’re only 8 days away from Fox’s big summer blockbuster X-Men: First Class and we’ve seen almost all of the film from clips circulating the web. With that, we’ve got some awesome new clips for you to drool over.

For those who still haven’t heard about the details of the film, here’s the official synopsis.

X-MEN FIRST CLASS charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga, and reveals a secret history of famous global events. Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time.

Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

With a full cast and Kick-Ass’s driver Matthew Vaughn directing the film, we expect some pretty big results from this 60’s style prequel. Check out the clips after the jump and catch First Class in theaters on June 3rd.