‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ has yet to be released in theaters, but its sequel, ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ is already getting some buzz worthy treatment. In a recent interview with ‘Total Film’ magazine, producer/director Bryan Singer gave some juicy tidbits about the next film in the ‘X-Men’ series.

While ‘Days of Future Past’ is primarily in the 70s, Singer has revealed that ‘Apocalypse’ will be a continuation of that film but set in the next decade, the 1980s:

“We’re going to deal with the notion of ancient mutants – the fact they were born and existed thousands of years ago. But it’ll be a contemporary movie – well, it’ll take place in the ’80s… The ’80s is a period now – it’s hard for me to believe that”

The idea of ancient mutants and hints of touching on their origins is extremely exciting especially since those who are familiar with Apocalypse know that the titular villain hails from ancient Egypt and has been a foe that the X-Men find difficult to conquer. How difficult? Singer explains:

“‘Apocalypse’ will have more of the mass destruction that ‘X-Men’ films, to date, have not relied upon. There’s definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle.”

Singer then commented on the status of where he and the writers are at with the script:

“We’re currently breaking the story. We’re almost ready to go. Dan Harris, Michael Dougherty and Simon Kinberg are in the office across the street from me, working on story stuff right now. It’s great to have Dan and Michael back.”

While we will be seeing a slew of mutants in ‘Days of Future Past’, Singer was very reticent about who will be appearing in ‘Apocalypse’:

“I don’t want to get too specific, but we’ll introduce familiar characters in a younger time. That’ll be fun to show the audience. I call these movies in-between-quels. It’s a mind-fuck, sometimes, in terms of where things fall in the timeline!”

Does that mean we may finally get to see the return of Cyclops and Jean Grey?  Perhaps, but what it does sound like is that Singer will be further fixing the continuity problems seen between “The Last Stand’ and ‘First Class’.  And that’s not all! The ‘X-Men’ bug has certainly bit Singer upon his return as he has more stories he’d like to tell in the franchise:

“Yeah, there actually are [more stories I want to tell]. It all stems back to when I did [the first] X-Men. You always want to know where a character’s going to go, what their future’s going be like. You can always sequelise. But on that film I also had actors asking ‘Who am I? Where did my character come from?’ So as a director you always need a backstory to give your actors. It may not be the right backstory, but it’s one you can give the actor to help them understand their character. These prequels are really exciting for me because they give me a chance to explore ideas I came up with more than a decade ago.”

So it seems that Singer has a game plan for the X-Men franchise that is sure to please fans.

‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ won’t be release until  May 26, 2016, a good three weeks to allow the dust to settle from the battle of ‘Captain America 3’ and ‘Batman vs. Superman’ on May 6, 2016.

Source: Comic Book Movie