Update: X-Men producer Bryan Singer has now confirmed that Days of Future Past is the storyline for X-Men: First Class sequel. We are re-running this story from two months ago which delves into all the exciting possibilities the sequel could hold...
X-Men 4: Days of Future Past
The Plot The central element of Days of Future Past (and pretty much every story that's imitated) is that the future is a dark and messed up place, so bad that someone has to travel backwards in time to fix it. The key to stop the US from becoming a distopic hellhole where mutants are forced into concentration camps lies in preventing an assassination. This concept could be further augmented by the time travelling character needing to bring Xavier back into the fold sooner rather than later. This could give the film a great 'race against time' feeling. One problem with this story being used for X4 is that the assassination target would have to be changed. In the original story arc, the X-Men needed to save Senator Robert Kelly, who was actually killed off in the first movie. A potential replacement could be Graydon Creed, leader of an anti-mutant movement called the "Friends of Humanity". There are other figures that could be used in place of Kelly, because he himself isn't too important to the story. As long as the target is someone important enough that their death would set of a huge backlash of anti mutant hysteria, it doesn't really matter who that someone is.
Which X-Men Characters To Use?
One of the most interesting elements of doing a Future Past movie is the choice of time traveler to use. Doing it as a follow up to X3 affords the opportunity to use the original stories protagonist Kitty Pride. This would be a great opportunity for Fox to make use of Ellen Page whose profile has risen quite a bit since her performance in the 2006 threequel having won an Oscar nomination for Juno and starring in Inception. Having the plot focused on Kitty would also be a chance for the film to stand out against other superhero flicks, indeed all the X-Men movies, by having a woman take centre stage. Well, alongside Hugh Jackman's Wolverine who would be the top billing at the box office anyway. There are other options at hand though, which are worth consideration. A trick from the 1990's cartoon could be borrowed by introducing Cable or Bishop. Each character would have some interesting to add into the mix. Aside from offering a nice bit of racial diversity to the cast, Bishop also has the visually interesting power of absorbing and releasing energy. This could make for some really cool fight scenes. Cable on the other hand would be a make-up artists dream come true with his cybernetic limbs. More importantly his background of being Scott Summers son from the future lends itself to some dynamic character development. Some people might object to this by pointing out "They can't use Cyclops for X4 because Jean killed him in X3!". This is of course not true. If you're part of the crowd that thinks movie Scott Summers is dead you need to watch X3 again. The last time we see Scott in that film is when Jean gives him a life sucking kiss as the scene cuts away. So we never actually see Scott die on screen. Super Heroes Rule #1 is "if you don't see them die, they aren't really dead!" Rule #2 would be "If you actually see them die, they're probably dead." and Rule #3 is "Death is like a cold for super heroes. Sooner or later they'll get better." Speaking of Scott, now that Emma Frost has been introduced in First Class, there's an opportunity for her to be used in a 4th X-Men flick. This presents two opportunities. First off, Frost would fill in the need for a telepath left open by the death of Jean Grey at the end of X3. Secondly her presence in the film would afford an opportunity to explore the Scott + Emma relationship that has emerged in the comics within the past decade. It would be incredibly interesting to have Cable turn out to be the future progeny of Scott and Emma. If nothing else it'd be worth it to hear the angered out cry of continuity freaks who can't accept that movie adaptions only need to be consistent to their own newly established world rather than slavishly devoted to multiple decades worth of comics lore. Another of the many characters introduced in the X-Men prequels that could be brought into a 4th X movie is Gambit. This would present an interesting chance to borrow another element from the 90's cartoon by having the time travelling character believe Remmy LaBeau to be the one responsible for the assassination. Seriously, the 90's cartoon was awesome. Then again, it's not necessarily a requirement that this storyline be used for X4. Adding this into the next prequel presents some rather unique opportunities of it's own. Click "next" below to see how X-Men First 2: Days of Future Past could work...