PASADENA -- There is life after X-Men.

Bryan Singer, who co-wrote and directed X-Men and its sequel X2: X-Men United, points out the two films "have taken up five years of my life.

"It's been an exciting and highly rewarding five years, but I can see a life beyond X-Men."

X-Men, shot in Toronto on a budget of $74 million US, had a world-wide gross of $296 million. If the sequel, shot last summer in Vancouver, does as well or better as tracking firms are projecting, there will likely be a second sequel and even spin-off features for such characters as Wolverine.

"I would definitely be involved in some capacity on a third X-Men film because I love the franchise and I love the cast, but I don't necessarily see myself having to direct it."

He could see himself writing the third film if specific things could be worked out with the major players involved.

"I have purposely incorporated things into X2 and have ideas that would lend themselves to future pictures, but certain circumstances would have to be appropriated because I really want to do a few small pictures before I tackle another big, special-effects movie."

Singer had made only The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil before he directed X-Men.

He says what drew him to X-Men in the first place and what keeps him riveted is that, "the X-Men universe has always been about outcasts searching for a place to belong.

In X2: X-Men United when Xavier's School For the Gifted, their mutant academy, is attacked by a renegade military man (Brian Cox) and his secret army, Rogue (Anna Paquin), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) take refuge at Iceman's home.

The parents are unaware their son is a mutant so he chooses this moment to tell them. Singer says this scene is the equivalent of a gay teenager coming out to his family.

"We use a couple of lines of dialogue that make this reference pretty clear, especially when his mother asks if he has ever tried not being a mutant."

'INFLAMMATORY'

Singer insists what Iceman goes through in this scene "is a common adolescent experience. So many young people feel separate from their parents, neighbours and classmates. "I can relate. When I was a teenager, I wasn't particularly athletic, popular or irresistibly handsome. I had the privilege of being both a nerd and a terrible student."

Singer says he visits the Internet sites devoted to his movies. "I cringe at some of the erroneous things that are posted on them, but I have only corrected a few I felt were radically wrong or particularly inflammatory."

Singer did make an effort to address the rumours that said he and Halle Berry locked horns on the Vancouver set of X2. It also was reported Singer had taken painkillers, which rendered him incapable of shooting for a full day.

He did suffer from severe back pains from a hip injury throughout the five-month shoot and did accept a painkiller from a crew member, but, he says, "That day I wrote and shot one of the most interesting moments in the picture.

"Everything was blown completely out of proportion."

It has been widely reported that Berry is refusing to return for a second sequel, but again Singer insists "Halle has never said anything to that effect to me ... she is the sweetest, most wonderful person imaginable."


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