Hugh Jackman on The Wolverine

“You want to get me into trouble, don’t you? [laughs] Okay, the movie takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand. My character is at his lowest. He is supposed to be able to heal himself, but he may encounter someone who has worked out a way to really hurt him. And there is a cameo from one of the past X-Men in it.”

Okay, before he was saying The Wolverine was a stand alone movie, now it’s apparently taking place after X-Men 3.  The X-men movies have become a huge mess and each movie completely contradicts events that took place in the other movies, like Professor X becoming paralyzed in First Class when he was young, yet still walking in X-Men 3 and X-men Origins: Wolverine when he was much older.  It shouldn’t be that difficult to at least try to keep a consistent timeline.

I can’t really say I am excited about this movie.  It sounds like a cool storyline and could be interesting but really there have been more awful movies coming out of the X-men universe than good ones and even the best ones aren’t great (just good).  I hope they get their house in order and start making some good movies that actually make sense when viewed with the other ones but after so many failures, I don’t see that happening.  I’ll probably wait until this one is out on Netflix before seeing it.

Alan Cumming Back as Nightcrawler?

If he has his way that will be the case in X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I liked his character in X-Men 2 so I wouldn’t mind seeing him return, though I seem to remember reading about there being a lot of fights between him and Director Bryan Singer on the set so I doubt it will happen.

“I haven’t gotten the call. Someone told me that Nightcrawler doesn’t appear in the story but I don’t know, I think they would have called by now. It was funny that film because I really like it and everyone really responded to Nightcrawler and enough time has elapsed that I would like to go back to it. Although then when I did that film it was sort of the start of this spate of superhero and comic books made into films so it felt a little more special then it does now. X2 was a really great film, not just as a comic book film. I think it’s one of the films I’d been in that I think of as really good.”

Bryan Singer’s Surprise X-Men Announcement

Looks like we weren’t the only ones who were surprised when Bryan Singer announced Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen would be returning for Days of Future Past!

“Bryan let the cat out of the bag on Twitter and it included announcing that Sir Ian and myself were going to be in this movie. We are, you know, under contractual oath with 20th Century Fox to say nothing about any prospective X-Men movie including the old team. I use “old” advisedly. So it’s a kind of awkward position, because lovely Bryan Singer just blurted it all out there. For me the big thrill is knowing that Bryan Singer is attached to this movie, because not only is he a brilliant director, but also I adore him and hope that it might be true and that we do work together at some point in the future. But I’m not being coy. I know nothing about this project. And I’m hoping that might change in the future.”

“I don’t know that we’re doing it. I have not signed a contract yet. I know there is a project in development, but we have no dates. No detailed casting. Thrilled to hear that my dear friend and colleague Ian McKellen is on board, but I’m sorry, you know, you need to understand, I’m not being cute. I know nothing.”

Ian McKellen experienced the same: “I mean they talked to me about it and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if it happened’, and I didn’t hear any more, and then suddenly Bryan Singer tweets his friends and says, ‘I’m gonna make X-Men with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen’, so that’s how I learned that I got the job!”

Ian McKellen on X-Men: Days of Future Past

“What a gas!  I mean, Patrick Stewart and I have been have just been playing “Waiting for Godot” throughout England and in the West End of London. So, we’ve stayed in touch. We can’t believe it [laughs]. I thought these were Fassbender and McAvoy’s parts, but — no, no — we’re back. We’ll give them a run for their money. I mean, I haven’t read the script, so I don’t know how much we’ve got to do. But, to be back in that world, and for Bryan to be doing it — with all the success he’s had in the meantime — it’s wonderful. Wonderful.”


McKellen on Michael Fassbender (Magneto in X-Men: First Class): “I thought he was exactly that: first class. Excellent… I thought he was better than me. But, we weren’t quite playing the same character because he was so much younger than me.”

Hugh Jackman in X-Men: Days of Future Past?

Reports are that Hugh Jackman is up to reprise his role as Wolverine again the X-men: Days of Future Past.  Wolverine was a prominent character in the comic book storyline this film is based on which takes place in an alternate universe where mutants are hunted down by giant robots called Sentinels after the Brotherhood killed an important Senator.

Do you think adding Wolverine to this movie is a step in the right direction or the wrong way to go?  He has dominated most of the other X-Men films and has his own movie series as well.  Though it would be more faithful to the comics with him, it would give other characters a chance to shine more without him.

Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart returning for ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

Bryan Singer announced today on twitter that both Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart will be reprising their roles as Magneto and Professor X, respectively.  Many of the cast members from X-Men: First Class will also be returning.  This is possible because the Days of Future Past storyline takes places over different time periods.

Thrilled to announce @ianmckellen118 & @SirPatStew are joining the cast of #XMEN #DaysOfFuturePast #magneto #professorX More to come…

Mark Millar on X-Men: Days of Future Past

Mark Millar, creative consultant for Fox on their Marvel properties, on X-Men: Days of Future Past:

“Vaughn is going for a big sci-fi style thing with X-Men: Days of Future Past,” Millar said. ”It’s X-Men meets The Terminator, You’ve got robots, you’ve got time travel, you’ve got superheroes – it’s got everything in one film.”

It should be interesting as a stand alone film.  With it being a possible (or alternate) timeline, they can do anything they want with the characters.  It’s a pretty different story than anything we have seen before in the movies.

Hugh Jackman: “The Wolverine Will Be A Standalone Film”

Some interesting news from the X-men world. The new Wolverine movie is not a direct sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I kind of like the idea of the X-Men movies not really needing to be connected. X-Men comics have been around for so long and there are so many stories you can convert to film from the series, why be bogged down by something a director in the past has done?  

Ignoring past, not very popular, films in a franchise has been done before. X-Men: First Class took this approach when it completely ignored the events of X-Men 3 and Superman Returns did the same with Superman 3 & 4. Of course, it would be nice if everyone of these projects was simply done well in the first place, so future directors wouldn't have to ignore them, but it's also interesting to see each director put their own unique spin on things.  

Mr. Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackson, had a few things to say about the new film:  

"We've deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture," Jackman said. "With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it's going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic." 

"The approach to character means we won't be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it'll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film."  

I do like a less cluttered movie. Having lots of characters works better in a comic book because there are so many issues (and many characters get their own spin off comics) that we really get to know each character. In a movie, you only get around 2 hours so it's hard to really build 5 or more character up in that time. Typically they end up focusing on one character the most and ignoring the rest (like Cyclops in the original X-Men movies).

‘X-Men First Class 2: Days of Future Past’

Some big news in the X-Men universe today! The official title for ‘X-Men First Class 2′ is ‘Days of Future Past’. Now if you don’t follow the comic books (it’s an older story from 1981), or haven’t seen the cartoon version from the 90s, ‘Days of Future Past’ takes place in an alternate future where mutants are rounded up and put into internment camps. It heavy features both Wolverine and The Sentinels (giant robots created by the Government to hunt down mutants briefly seen at the beginning of X-Men 3).

Considering this story involves time travel as well it’s a pretty big change for the X-Men movie universe. It will be interesting to see how close the movie version is to the comic version.