As previously reported, Bryan Singer, the man responsible for bringing together the movie franchise based on Marvel's X-Men comics, will not return to direct the upcoming prequel, "X-Men: First Class."

Singer is currently committed to "Jack the Giant Killer," an epic-scaled fairy tale being developed by Warner Bros., which already is in pre-production. However, that won't mean he's out of X-Men entirely as Singer has now formalized his move from director to producer.

He will join existing producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg. The script for the project was based on his original treatment, where he said the movie would be "the formative years of Xavier and Magneto, and the formation of the school and where their relationship took a wrong turn ... [t]here is a romantic element, and some of the mutants from 'X-Men' will figure into the plot, though I don't want to say which ones. There will be a lot of new mutants and a great villain."

However, Singer could be back in the director's seat for more X-Men antics; Fox is looking at "First Class" as a new starting point for the franchise and is hoping to launch a new trilogy. That means that although he's not directing this outing, he could be back for the other two followups.

Plus, Singer has apparently already had lunch with actor Hugh Jackman, where the duo discussed plans to reprise the role of Wolverine in either a "Wolverine 2" or an "X-Men 4."

Directors are already being sought to fill the void left by Singer.