Simon Kinberg on ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’: ‘First Class’ cast in central, set 20 years pre-X1

After the incredible success of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fox moving quickly to get fans buzzing about the next film in the franchise: X-Men: Apocalypse. Now with director Bryan Singer is locked in, writer Simon Kinberg took part in a Q&A with Yahoo! on Monday to give some details on the new film.

Would different versions of Scott and Jean be needed for “Apocalypse”? photo/Brandon Jones

“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.”

Fans were quick to ask about the original cast of X-Men actors and if they too play a role in the new film.

Kinberg was also asked about recasting any of the original “X-Men” actors for the upcoming “Apocalypse,” to which he replied:

“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,” he says in the Yahoo interview session.

“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.”

Singer was quoted as saying he wanted to introduce “familiar characters at different ages” in the film, it seems likely we’ll be seeing younger versions of the original cast.

Kinberg, along with X2: X-Men United writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty, is developing the screenplay for the film 

 X-Men: Apocalypse is set for release on May 27, 2016.