Bryan Singer confirmed for X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, writer Simon Kinsberg teases familiar and new characters

 

The X-Men franchise is in a good position right now. Director Bryan Singer started something magical with the first two films, while a third flick kept the franchise alive despite having a terrible effect overall, leading to Mathew Vaughn to give the series a soft reboot with X-Men: First Class. Enter X-Men: Days Of Future Past which saw Singer return for a third stab at the franchise. The fourth time is the charm however, because Singer is now a lock to helm the latest film which will be taking the children of tomorrow into battle with Apocalypse.

According to Deadline, Fox has signed Singer on, and with his ahem legal matters out of the way, he can get back to work on the project which he was busy shaping since he started work on DOFP. Writer Simon Kinberg will also be returning, penning a script that sees the X-Men taking on a new threat in the pointless decade that was the 1980s. Once again, the First Class stars will lead this film, as Kinberg told Yahoo!:

The X-Men film that we’re working on now as everybody knows is X-Men: Apocalypse and that really follows the stories of the let’s say ‘First Class’ X-Men. Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, many others of that generation of X-Men. So, in future X-Men films? Perhaps, but in ‘Apocalypse’ it will really be the continuation of the ‘past’ of ‘Days of Future Past.’

That doesn’t mean that the original X-Men won’t show up. But if they do, there’s going to be some new casting place, which Kinberg explained:

If we included some of the original X-Men, like Storm, Jean, Scott, and others, yeah we would have to recast them, because Apocalypse takes place a good twenty years before “X1,” which now insanely was fifteen years ago. It would be very hard to do. Halle, Famke, and Jimmy, and others have done such wonderful jobs of bringing those characters to life and they’re so identified, those actors, with the parts now. So it would be a tall task, but I also would have said before “First Class” there would be no way we could find actors who could stand alongside Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, and I think we managed to with Michael and James finding their own interpretation of the characters, not doing an impersonation. So, are we going to have to recast? If some of those characters were in the movie we would, but we’ll see.

X-men: Apocalypse could wind up featuring new and old cast members. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine will most likely make at least a cameo of sorts, while Channing Tatum’s Gambit and a new Nightcrawler could also feature alongside Charlie Xavier’s newly shaved head. Groovy.

With all the pieces in play, X-Men: Apocalypse is set for a May 27 release in 2016.

Last Updated: September 23, 2014