It’s a sad day for X-Men fans. Bryan Singer’s upcoming sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past still seems like cause for celebration, since it heralds the return of the original franchise director and the adaptation of one of the most iconic stories in comic book history, but it appears that although several cast members of the “modern day” X-Men franchise will appear in the new movie, they won’t have any scenes with their First Class cast members.
Empire Online (via Coming Soon) asked James McAvoy, who plays Charles “Professor X” Xavier in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, whether he would be sharing any screen time with Patrick Stewart, who originated the role in 2000’s X-Men, also directed by Singer. McAvoy said, he doesn’t “think we get any scenes together, sadly.”
Worse yet, for X-Men fans hoping to see the old and new cast members team up to take on new bad guy Peter Dinklage, McAvoy added, “I don’t think there’s any future self talking to past self.”
It could be that McAvoy is trying to mislead fans away from important plot points, like Marion Cotillard did when she denied the spoiler rumors for The Dark Knight Rises, but it’s equally likely that X-Men: Days of Future Past just isn’t “going there.” It’s entirely plausible that the original cast of the X-Men franchise will spend most of their time in a prologue sequence, sending only the youngest members of the team backwards in time to prevent whichever disaster Singer & Co. decide to make possible for the film’s dystopian future.
But… damn it, how cool would it have been to see James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart on-screen together, reminiscing about better hair days and scared witless over future chrome domes? Or Michael Fassbender learning that Magneto doesn’t have such an easy journey ahead of him after sharing a scene with Ian McKellan? Or hell, two Wolverines, kicking ass and taking names at the same time?
It’s a bit of a bummer, but without knowing just how X-Men: Days of Future Past is going to play out, we can say for certain whether these potential sequences are a tragic loss, a justifiable sacrifice, or even destined for the screen anyway, as a little surprise for all the fans out there.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel, the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and the co-star of The Trailer Hitch. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
