The X-Men franchise has been reinvigorated since First Class hit screens in 2011 with this year’s follow-up from Bryan Singer, Days of Future Past also being generally well received. The series is rolling on with X-Men: Apocalypse already in the works (for which Future Past included a stinger in case anyone missed it!), and while it was generally considered that Singer would return once again, his involvement has now been made official.
Reportedly Singer and Fox have agreed to terms for him helming the next film in the series, which will be the fourth film directed by Singer (the previous three being – X1, X2, and DoFP). Singer is also attached in a writing capacity which is something he’s done on several of the previous films including First Class. Alongside him will be writers Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris, and Simon Kinberg.
Apocalypse of course refers to a supervillain in the comics, an ancient mutant with a variety of powers that could be utilised in the new film. Aside from physical mutant abilities Apocalypse is supposed to be extraordinarily intelligent, this is something I hope they make use of in the film.
Further to Bryan Singer’s official involvement, it has also been reported that we’re unlikely to see the original cast members returning once again (other than Hugh Jackman of course), and that the film will focus on the X-Men: First Class cast.
That said, we still may see some of those original characters again, In fact Simon Kinsberg has been reported with the following to say;
If we included some of the original X-Men like Storm and Jean and Scott and others in Apocalypse, yeah we’d have to recast them, as Apocalypse takes place a good twenty years before the first X-Men which was now, insanely a good ten to fifteen years ago.
So while some of the classic characters might be back, it looks like Days of Future Past was definitely the swan song for some of those actors and their time in the X-franchise, ultimately however, as with most things comics related, I guess anything could happen!
X-Men: Apocalypse is scheduled for release in mid-2016.
