The rumors about this project first broke in May, when Schwartz's off-the-record comments about the then-unnamed project accidentally made it into an online interview:

I'm very well aware that I'll be bludgeoned by purists, but I love its mythology, and it comes with a pretty hefty paycheck... It's not like I'm adding new characters like Toaster Head, or anything like that.

But while Toaster Head may not be appearing, which X-Men will feature in First Class? Wolverine and Magneto are both headed for their own movies, and X-Men: The Last Stand pretty much killed off most of the other main characters from the movie series. Fox isn't saying anything about this project, but the Marvel comic of the same name focuses on the first students that Charles Xavier taught: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast and Angel... all of whom have already appeared in various X-Men movies to date. Will Schwartz be reuniting those characters, or - more likely - choosing from the many, many, other characters that have called themselves "X-Men" throughout the history of the comic?

If it's the latter, then all I have to ask is this: Can we please see the movie debut of Doug Ramsey, the nerdy mutant with the power of simultaneous translation (No, really)? And if so, can he be played by Adam Brody?

Fox, Josh Schwartz mutate 'X-Men' [Variety]

While it's good to have Chuck back, there's nothing special about "Chuck Versus The First Date." For all the talk about this episode acting as a second pilot episode, there's nothing here that you haven't seen done before — and, for that matter, done more entertainingly — in the show's first season. All of the show's cliches are checked off (Look! There's Big Mike being gruff! And the BuyMore employees getting all Lord Of The Dysfunctional Flies in the back of the store! Here's a hint that Sarah really does love Chuck, but can't tell him! Oh, isn't Casey sweet under that gruff exterior? etc.) , and in such a way as to make it feel lethargic and necessary instead of urgent and exciting. Using the threat of a new Intersect as a McGuffin for both of the show's plots before literally just blowing it up at the end of the episode in order to preserve the status quo, we're left with Chuck bemoaning the fact that his life is going to stay the same old drudgery forever more, with no chance of improvement... hardly the message to send viewers who'll have already spent the last hour feeling a distinct sense of deja vu.

It's possible that creator Josh Schwartz just gets flattened by the idea of a sophomore slump; his (and I am not ashamed to admit it) awesome The OC had a lackluster second year, after all, and concerns about the strike-induced false start of the show's first year may have made him feel that he needed to hit the reset button and repeat everything from the show's first year — but neither of those reasons, nor this treading-water opener, are good signs for what's coming up over the next twenty-one episodes. Here's hoping the second episode starts to push things forward again.

Chuck Versus The First Date [NBC]

According to the now-retracted report, Schwartz said that the project was "a prequel of sorts" and added:

I'm very well aware that I'll be bludgeoned by purists, but I love its mythology, and it comes with a pretty hefty paycheck... It's not like I'm adding new characters like Toaster Head, or anything like that. The Hulk looks like it's going to be terrible. And why does he look like he's fighting against the monster from Cloverfield? I mean, with Transformers, it's not like fans were going to come back saying, 'You used the wrong car.' This, however, is a different story. Brett Ratner didn't have a lot of credibility going in to the third X-Men movie, but I think Bryan Singer [who directed the first two installments] got a free pass on Superman Returns because of his work on X-Men.

In a blog post that appeared May 2 on bbook.com, some quotations by the subject Josh Schwartz were erroneously reported. Consequently, BlackBook immediately removed the item. We regret the error and extend our apologies to Mr. Schwartz.

Correction [Black Book] (via Blog@Newsarama)