Singer: 'Wolverine not in X-Men: First Class'

Bryan Singer has denied rumours that Wolverine will make an appearance in prequel X-Men: First Class.

Hugh Jackman was recently spotted near Jekyll Island, Georgia - a filming location for Matthew Vaughn's X-Men origin story - leading to speculation that the Marvel antihero would appear in the film.

Singer, who directed the first two X-Men outings and is producing First Class, claimed that the Wolverine rumours are false.

"He's not in the movie, he's in the Wolverine movies," The Coventry Telegraph quotes him as saying.

A Fox spokesman added: "X-Men hasn't started shooting in Georgia yet and if Hugh was in Georgia, it wasn't for this movie."

Singer also discussed his reasons for making First Class a period film, saying: "It's a really cool and fun story. It will be the first Silver Age Marvel movie.

"We've set First Class in a time when the X-Men were conceived in the early '60s, up against political events that were happening - the early civil rights movement - and we have these kinds of events at a time when the world didn't know mutants existed."

X-Men: First Class will open next June, while Darren Aronofsky's Wolverine 2 is scheduled for release later in 2011.