X-Men 3 - Zak Penn writing the draft !

Zak Penn ("Elektra"), who got a story credit on the second X-Men movie, told SCI FI Wire that he has been hired to draft the script for the 3rd X-Men movie. Hed also talked about the chalanges he is facing:

"It's not just about including everyone. It's really more about how you give everyone more and better screen time. The answer is that you can't, and you have to make really difficult choices. That's actually the most difficult thing about writing an X-Men movie. I think on X-Men 2, I counted 14 main characters, and I haven't even begun to count how many there are now. It's actually very difficult. It might not seem it, but it's a very difficult writing assignment in a lot of ways, because it's so complicated juggling all these different storylines. The movie is still coming together, but I believe that all the major players are back."

As we already know, will Bryan Singer (who directed the first two X-Men films) not return for the third film, and there is still no director hired:

"We don't know who the director is yet, which is fantastic. I love our director right now. He's no one. Here's the thing. I actually got along pretty well with Bryan. He's got very strong opinions, but fundamentally, because he did such a good job on the movies, it was hard not to. ... There are people involved, I guess, who didn't get along with Bryan, but he clearly did an excellent job with the first two films. So it's going to be difficult to follow in his footsteps. That said, there's no question that because he's got strong opinions it's a little bit easier for me as a writer, because ... whatever ... it's one less argument you need to have."

You can read the whole article here.

The third installment of the X-Men films. No story has been confirmed, BUT, I think 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: SCI FI Wire