When it comes to the future of the X-Men series after X-Men: Days Of Future Past, all signs point toward Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters being set up in the next instalment of the franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse – introducing us to younger versions of classic characters Scott Summers, Jean Grey and Ororo Munroe.
“I can’t talk too much about Apocalypse, but certainly the next chapter of the First Class cast… where they are after the events of Days Of Future Past is where the bulk of Apocalypse will take place,” says writer and producer Simon Kinberg, speaking exclusively to SciFiNow.
“There is the arc of, when Wolverine tells Charles, ‘Promise me you’ll bring the X-Men together’, and then when he wakes up, 50 years in the future, Charles has kept his promise. So somewhere in that period, there’s no question that Charles put the school together and recruited Jean, Scott, Storm, Rogue and the others.”
Whether Jean, Cyclops and Storm will be on board for the next big battle remains to be seen, but it’s certain that Xavier will need as many mutants as Cerebro can find before he heads into battle with the ancient and mighty mutant En Sabah Nur. It’s a daunting prospect for the writers as well as the characters.
“It’s terrifying!” admits Kinberg. “We’re just starting the script now, and it’s daunting because of the scale of Apocalypse’s power.
“There’s two challenges – one, is that we’re creating an unbeatable, unkillable villain, so how do we beat or kill him in a way that doesn’t just feel like a trick? And I hope we have something that does that – and is emotional. And that’s the other part of it – how do you create a villain that is emotional and rounded, and dramatic, like the rest of the franchise?
“Bryan [Singer, director] did something really bold with X-Men. He set a new tone for superhero movies. He made it serious and dramatic – more drama than genre. All these X-Men movies – the good ones – are more drama than genre.
“So with Apocalypse, the danger is that you just start to make a disaster movie with people using their superpowers to stop it. We just can’t do that. I can’t do that because I have to give this script to Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and James McAvoy!
“The weapon of the X-Men movies is the characters and the actors – when you look at the whole cast, you couldn’t put together a better cast. As a writer you have the fans to think about, you have your own fandom to think about because I care so much about these books, and then you have these actors.”
X-Men: Days Of Future Past will be released on 22 May 2014. Read our massive behind the scenes special in the new issue of SciFiNow and find out more about the comics that inspired the film with our awesome new digital magazine Uncanny Comics.
