Two days ago a fan-made, early ’60s-style main title sequence for the forthcoming X Men: First Class (20th Century Fox, 6.3) got 2000 hits. Yesterday it got 40,000 and today (as of 4:30 pm eastern) it’s at 50,000 and counting. The creator is Joe DiLeonardo (a.k.a. “Joe D”) of Trenton, New Jersey.

X-Men: First Class Title Sequence from Joe D! on Vimeo.

The sequence is a bit slow and lumpy here and there, but Joe (whom I spoke to a few minutes ago) threw it together very quickly, and at least he’s got the early ’60s style down. His only mistakes were including two or three stills that were probably taken in the mid to late ’60s, which of course violates the space-time continuum.

How will this compare to the actual Matthew Vaughn– and 20th Century Fox-approved main title sequence? They’ll be fairly or very similar, I would imagine. The forthcoming prequel is set during the time of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, so what Joe D. has done is actually a no-brainer. In fact, if I were running the show I’d tell the designers to somehow go beyond this and…I don’t know, just punch through all that shit without losing the period vibe. A kind of hybrid.

“This sequence was designed to give a very brief primer on the time period and the setting, as well as show the relationships of the characters in this film, as they are very different from the previous,” Joe explains. “Audiences shouldn’t be confused as to why Professor X and Magneto, enemies in the original trilogy, are the best of friends in this prequel.

“Super Punch held a contest redesigning the posters for the film, which played it safe by sticking very close to the correlation to the original trilogy, and winding up rather mundane compared to the slick trailer rife with espionage, red fear and early ’60s hair. Several people were quick to make posters in the mod/Saul Bass/James Bond style that I had in mind, so I decided to make a title sequence instead.”