Joss Whedon not directing X-Men 3 !

"I did promise I would say whether or not I'm going to be directing the third X-Men movie, and the answer is, I'm sorry to say, no. Quite frankly, I thought about it for a long time, I looked into my heart, and I realized that Fox didn't ask me to."

"Ultimately, the fact that I'm writing the X-Men every month in the Astonishing X-Men (Marvel comic) and that I have the best artists in comic books working with me is getting my 'X' fix on just fine. I'm writing a screenplay of my own right now, and it'll be nice to work on something that wasn't created by me or anybody else many years ago."

No story has been confirmed yet, but its safe to say that the third part will revolve around the Phoenix saga. Reports indicate the producers want to skip ahead and go straight into the Dark Phoenix story. New characters rumored to be in X3 include Gambit, Beast, Angel, Psylocke, Emma Frost, Dazzler, Juggernaut and possibly the Sentinels.

Source: SciFi Wire