X-Men: First Class Sequel Is Officially X-Men: Days of Future Past

By Matt Holmes / August 2, 2012

When I wrote on June 5th that 20th Century Fox had registered the movie title "X-Men: Days of Future Past" with the MPAA board, I honestly had huge doubts whether it would come to anything. I did write that the classic Chris Claremont and John Byrne 1981 published alternative timeline tale COULD form the basis for an ambitious plot and title for the €œX-Men: First Class€ sequel but I didn't think 20th Century Fox would have the balls to make such a complex sequel. Don't get me wrong, I hoped and hoped. If you read my original story, it is full of fanboy giddiness at the possibilities... but deep down I knew I was reaching. Well folks, turns out I wasn't. Prepared to be VERY excited... Producer Bryan Singer has confirmed to IGN that the "ambitious" X-Men: Days of Future Past is officially the sequel to the 2011 reboot X-Men: First Class and I wonder if this has been his plan of direction ever since he first approached Fox with the idea of taking the X-Men characters back to their origin. He told the site;

"It's called 'Days of Future Past'... It deals with aspects of that comic, but also some very new things."

He doesn't say too much else but a key line snippet he did reveal is his hope to "expand the X-Men franchise to become as complete a world as the interconnected film universe of Marvel's The Avengers." and if you watch the video, he is clearly bad at poker as he pretty much gives away that they are basically doing a cross-over movie with X-Men 3: The Last Stand and this will be how they keep continuity. Do you remember way back before X-Men: First Class was released, some of the producers were saying the movie was basically like J.J. Abrams' Star Trek in nature? Well they weren't kidding as First Class may now officially become its own alternative universe to Singer's original trilogy! The classic two-issue X-Men comic was set in an alternative future where mutants had been incarcerated in internment camps. In an attempt to change history, Kitty Pryde of the future time transfers her mind to Kitty Pryde of the present and the contemporary X-Men form a plan to stop the future from happening. There are Sentinels in the story of course and an assassination of Senator Kelly by Magneto€™s Brotherhood. Perhaps Fox will decide this is how they can do an X-Men 4, by using characters such as Halle Berry€™s Storm, Ian McKellen€™s Magneto, Ellen Page€™s Kitty Pryde and Hugh Jackman€™s Wolverine from the post-X-Men 3 storyline and then going back to team with the new blood from X-Men: First Class era and you could replace Senator Kelly€™s assassination with that of JFK to alter history € Matthew Vaughn will direct from a script he will co-write with his regular writing partner Jane Goldman. Shooting on the film will begin in January 2003 for a release July 18th, 2014 and all the major characters who survived the original film will return.