It doesn’t come as a great surprise, but a welcome one, in that director Bryan Singer (X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, THE USUAL SUSPECTS) has officially signed on to direct the next installment in the mutant franchise, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Singer revealed early on that X-MEN: APOCALYPSE was in the works, even before DAYS OF FUTURE PAST hit theaters. Given that Singer seemed to have righted most of the wrongs established in the third X-Men outing, fans should be more than pleased that he will see the series through to one of the heroes’ most popular foes, Apocalypse.
While it’s been known that X-MEN: APOCALYPSE will be a continuation of the ‘First Class’ ensemble, it’s a mystery as to whether or not classic characters from the first three flicks may be re-casted to portray younger iterations. Writer Simon Kinberg recently spoke with Yahoo! Movies and had this to say:
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.
I’m surprised no mention has been made in regards to the role of Gambit going to Channing Tatum, but it looks as though 20th Century Fox is keeping things a little on the quiet side until a later date. Regardless, the X-Men flicks have yet to take destruction to a massive scale, so APOCALYPSE may deliver the most exciting X-flick to date!
X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is aiming to hit theaters on May 27, 2016.