You may or may not of heard stirring of what is really going on over at Fox with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Following this year’s The Wolverine, this series entry will attempt to draw together the entirety of the franchise by playing with time travel and expanding the cast to essentially include all of the X-Men characters both old and new. This is all you need to know about X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Who’s Calling the Shots?

Much like Marvel Studios hired Joss Whedon to shepherd phase 2 of their now massively bankable superhero projects, Fox recently secured Mark Millar to attempt to restructure Fox’s X-Men properties for a more Avengers-style silver screen team-up.

What does this means? Not only will we see more X-Men on screen together but expect them to begin playing in the same sandbox as Fox’s other Marvel property, The Fantastic Four. No, not the intolerable duo of films but a reboot which looks unexpectedly promising considering it will be directed by Josh Trankof last year’s pleasantly surprising Chronicle. 

With Millar overlooking the entirety of Fox’s super properties, look for more consistency going forward with eventual tag-team crossovers somewhere down the line.

Who’s Directing?

Although X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn was originally slated to helm this follow-up and had even been tossing around ideas for the last few years, he mysteriously bowed out. Many speculated he may have been going to Disney to assume responsibility for the next Star Wars film but now with J.J. Abrams confirmed, that obviously isn’t happening.

While Vaughn’s departure is a bummer, it opened up the seat to new possibilities. Instead of trying out a new talent or going with an established director new to the series, Fox has placed the film in the hands of series regular Bryan Singer. Having sat in the director’s chair for the first two films which where unanimously praised by fans and critics alike, Singer is very familiar with the territory.

Although he initially was in line to direct a third installment, he backed out to tackle the lackluster Superman Returns letting the reins fall to Brett Ratner. Most people are of the same mind that Ratner took 3 in a terrible direction and ended the franchise on a really disappointing note. Well now Singer has a chance to make a film that rectifies that mistake and hopefully the time play can erase some of the awfulness Ratner sprayed on the series.

The Plot

As 2011’s X-Men: First Class took the mutant co-op back to their roots with great critical success, some X-Men aficionados pointed out inconsistencies with Bryan Singer‘s original trilogy. For example, in X-Men 3: Bucket of Trash, we see Professor X (a bald-domed Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan) walking up to recruit a young Jean Grey. Well said aficionados noted that seeing that Charles Xavier is crippled far before he goes bald in X-Men: First Class, then the timeline is inconsistent with the original trilogy. What Days of Future Past will attempt to do is justify and legitimize said inconsistencies.

The storyline for the comic material on which the film will be based deals with “a dystopian alternative future in which mutants are incarcerated in internment camps. An older Kate Pryde transfers her mind into her younger self, the present-day Kitty Pryde, who brings the X-Men to prevent a fatal moment in history which triggers anti-mutant hysteria.”

So looks like we’ll be dealing with some time travel which explains one of the most exciting parts of the supersized franchise band-aid- it will deal with both generations of X-Men. Both those from the original trilogy and the new ‘reboot’ will be brought together. This means a giant cast.

The Cast 

What started as a bit of unpredictable casting has turned into an all out sweep for the cast for X-Men: Days of Future Past. Since this is a direct sequel to First Class,the stars of that series were the first to be locked down with James McAvoy (young Professor X), Jennifer Lawrence (young Mystique), Michael Fassbender (young Magneto) and Nicholas Hoult (young Beast) all scheduled to return. No punches pulled so far.

But then a surprising bit of news hit the twitter-sphere claiming that Ian McKellen (old Magneto) and Patrick Stewart (old Professor X) would be joining the cast as well. Cue the head scratching. Since then a slew of the original trilogy’s cast has been scooped up. The most recent of which Anna Paquin, Ellen Page and Shawn Ashmore who played Rogue, Kitty Pryde and Iceman. Also returning is series favorite and eponymous star of his own spin-off Wolverine, played with muscle-popping fanfare by Hugh Jackman.

 So with time travel in play, we will see different iterations of the same character sharing the screen. As for whether characters will end up meeting their aged counterparts, we can only speculate.

As for other cast members such as Halle Berry (Storm), January Jones (Emma Frost), James Marsden (Cyclops), Lucas Till (Havok), Jason Flemyng (Azazel), Caleb Laundry Jones (Banshee) and Famke  Janssen(Jean Grey/Phoenix) many have expressed interest in returning but their involved at this point is unconfirmed.

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