It doesn’t seem that long ago when waiting for the release of the next superhero movie seemed interminable. Not so now. In April alone, Marvel Studios released the sequels of both Captain America and The Amazing Spiderman.
Not satisfied with two superhero blockbusters in quick succession, Marvel will also release the fifth X-Men movie (seventh if you count the two Wolverine films), in only three weeks.
With an estimated budget of 250 million dollars, X-Men Days of Future Past is perhaps Marvel Studios biggest gamble to date.
Although the previous X-Men films have all done well at the box office, they have depended heavily on international movie goers to turn a profit. In the United States, most barely made their money back. In fact the previous X-Men offering, 2011’s First Class, actually lost money in the US.
So what of the film itself? Based on a storyline spanning two 1980 issues of The Uncanny X-Men, Days of Future Past is set in a future where mutants are not only confined in internment camps, they are hunted down and killed. On the cover of the original comic are pictures of various X-Men, some with the word ‘apprehended’, and many with the word ‘slain’, written over their faces. In the comic, Kitty Pride (Shadowcat), casts her mind back to her past self, gathering the X-Men from that time to prevent the act that initiated this severe anti-mutant sentiment. In the film adaptation, it is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who’s mind is cast back.
In a recent interview to promote the film, director Bryan Singer spoke of why this particular storyline was one he was eager to explore. “The reason the story stands out is because it paints the world of the future as one of defeat”.
“It asks the question, ‘how do you find redemption in a world of defeat?’
Being set in two different times, many of the X-Men appear as their older and younger selves, allowing Singer to bring the cast of X-Men First Class, and the previous three X-Men films together. Magneto is played by both Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender, while James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart return as Professor Xavier.
Hang on though. Didn’t Professor Xavier die in X-Men Last Stand? Well yes he did, but, as is Marvel’s want, a clue to his resurrection was given after the end credits had finished. “A lot of people never saw that scene at the end of the credits, so they assumed I’d been killed off,” Stewart explained in an interview with Total Film magazine last month.
As the plot of the film has been veiled in secrecy, it is hard to establish how closely related the film will be to the original comic book story. However, what is known is that the opposing mutants put their disagreements aside to fight for a common cause, and as mentioned above, Wolverine’s mind is cast back to his younger self.
At some point Professor Xavier will somehow actually meet his younger self – in a scene Patrick Stewart describes as, the “most important in the film.” He will also be more involved in the action this time around. In ‘Days’, he dons his own leather suit, and flies around on a ‘hoverchair’.
There will be characters that do not survive. Although who, and how many remains a mystery. One thing that is certain though, is that there will be some left, as Singer has signed on for the next X-Men movie ‘Apocalypse’, which is due for release in May of 2016.
X-Men Days of Future Past opens in cinemas on May 22nd.
Superheroes: From Comic Books to the Big Screen 