‘X-Men Days of Future Past’ recap from SDCC, Quicksilver update, time travel and Deadpool cameo
The massive panel for the new X-Men film wowed fans at SDCC. In attendance were director Bryan Singer, writer Simon Kinberg, producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker, plus cast members Evan Peters, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Shawn Ashmore, Ellen Page and Omar Sy.
A Sentinel head on display at the “Trask” display at SDCC 2013
X-Men: Days of Future Past is a famous comic book story arc in the X-Men universe, and Kinberg explained the one key change “The biggest difference between the film and the source material is that Kitty’s not the one who goes back in time, she sends someone back in time.”
Of course that character was revealed in some footage to be Wolverine.
The short clip reveals Xavier saying to Magneto, Storm that they need to send Logan’s mind back to his younger body and convince young Xavier and young Magneto to avert the disastrous future. The montage features most of the characters, Beast battling the young Magneto with the trailer concluding with the young Xavier shouting, “I don’t want your future!”
Singer explains pulling all of this together around Wolverine: “Initially, it began with the goal of bringing this cast together and time travel or time displacement of some kind would be the tool we could use to do that. Essentially the Wolverine of the future … his consciousness is sent into his younger self, and it’s nice that Hugh is able to play both parts, because his character is ageless, which is really unique.”
Fans have buzzed about the addition of Quicksilver (Peters), the lightning fast speedster who is the son of Magneto, who Singer says “was always part of the story as we were developing it.”
Peters said, “He’s very fast. He’s a spaz. He talks quick, he moves quick, everybody is very slow compared to him.”
“The best part of this movie is knowing that, at an earlier time in my life, I was James McAvoy,” Stewart joked prompting a counter by the “Narnia” star: “And if I’m going to grow up to be someone, who better than Sir Patrick Stewart?”
Singer did confirm that some continuity may have to change.
“Of the universe as established in the movies? Yes, there will be some of that … I do believe in some continuity, but things will change. That’s the nature of time travel.”
“Characters come back to life in the comics. Whenever I do something, I can’t just do it flippantly, I have to believe in the idea, the conceit. In my own mind, I understand how Xavier is alive from X-Men 3. There’s a beat after the credits when his conscious is alive in a woman in the hospital. So, you take that, mix it with some powerful mutants – mutants can do a lot of cool stuff – and you can imagine… anything’s possible.”
“So does that mean Xavier is back?” Stewart asked.
“For the moment … ,” Singer stated. “Another thing about this movie that’s different from the other X-Men movies, there’s a science-fiction aspect as well. There’s technologies, there’s the Sentinel program which is something that’s going to be part of the picture. So the time travel element and the science-fiction element is something that hasn’t been explored before.”
Deadpool was squashed as part of this film, but may be explored down the road.
“The X-Men universe is every bit as large as the Marvel and DC universe. If we carefully explore it movie by movie, I think there’s a lot of room for growing, for expanding the film canon for X-Men, so yeah.”
X-Men: Days of Future Past opens May 16, 2014.
That was awesome! Thanks fans!!! #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast pic.twitter.com/BepEUxLAu4 – Bryan Singer tweet
