X-Men: Days of Future Past has dodged the controversies and completely rewritten the story of the 14-year-old X-Men franchise. The result: an impressive $111 million opening weekend, one of the best of the year, and the admiration of fans everywhere for softly rebooting a franchise without going back to square one entirely. But what can we learn from the success of X-Men: Days of Future Past? How will the film’s success affect future films in the franchise and other superhero franchises, like Marvel Studios’ Avengers?
CraveOnline tackles these concerns and revelations with 5 Things We’ve Learned from X-Men: Days of Future Past, but be warned: SPOILERS lie ahead.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
X-Men: Days of Future Past - 5 Things We've Learned
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You Don't Have to Reboot Every Franchise
The X-Men movie franchise has been going strong for 14 years with no sign of stopping (X-Men: Apocalypse, a third Wolverine solo movie and a Gambit film are all on the way). In that time we've had two attempts to jumpstart a Hulk franchise, two Superman reboots, and two whole Spider-Man franchises. X-Men: Days of Future Past might prove that Hollywood may be too quick to abandon the groundwork laid by original franchises and start all over again. Even after some really bad entries in the X-Men series, Fox kept chugging along. But that being said...
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NOBODY Liked X-Men: The Last Stand
The ending of X-Men: Days of Future Past did one thing and one thing only: it completely retconned X-Men: The Last Stand out of existence. The third film in the franchise was filmed quickly while original director Bryan Singer briefly left to film Superman Returns, and is typically considered a low point of the series along with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, another movie that Singer had absolutely nothing to do with. Although Fox didn't reboot their franchise entirely, they did take the opportunity to cancel out their biggest mistakes using an in-continuity plot point. Time travel may be a cheap way to do it, but fans don't seem to care and neither do the filmmakers. Despite what CraveOnline itself has said, X-Men: The Last Stand apparently does suck.
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Everyone Likes Quicksilver (A Little TOO Much)
Fans and critics alike agree on one thing: Quicksilver rules. Played by "American Horror Story's" Evan Peters, the silver speedster stole X-Men: Days of Future Past from his more prominent co-stars and left fans begging for more. Just one problem: the next times fans will see him, he'll be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and that version of the character has NOTHING to do with the X-Men: Days of Future Past version due to legal mumbo-jumbo. Marvel Studios is banking on audiences being savvy enough to understand the difference between the characters, but either way Aaron Taylor-Johnson now has an uphill battle to win over audiences who have thoroughly fallen in love with Evan Peters' version of the character.
And speaking of Aaron Taylor-Johnson...
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Aaron Taylor-Johnson is NOT Apocalypse (We Think)
The post-credits teaser at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past showed En Sabah Nur, aka "Apocalypse," building the Egyptian pyramids all by his lonesome thousands of years ago. It's a pretty vague tease for X-Men: Apocalypse (unless the pyramids are actually involved, it pretty much just shows us that Apocalypse exists), but the actor playing the super villain raised a bunch of eyebrows by bearing an uncanny resemblance to Avengers: Age of Ultron star Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But we're pretty sure it's not him, because how confusing would THAT be...?
And to end things on a more solemn note...
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When In Doubt, Hide Bryan Singer
X-Men: Days of Future Past was Bryan Singer's most critically and financially successful movie since X2: X-Men United, but he's been suspiciously absent from the press tour. That might seem strange, since the film should be Singer's finest hour, but he's been sidelined from the publicity rounds after recent accusations surfaced that he sexually abused a 17-year-old in 1999. Singer denies the accusations and has filed to dismiss the case, but keeping him out of the public eye has kept the press focused on the quality of the film and not the tragic scandals surrounding the filmmaker, which no doubt helped X-Men: Days of Future Past dominate the box office this weekend. Bryan Singer is still reportedly on board to direct X-Men: Apocalypse, but how long can Fox keep him and his legal troubles out of the public eye? Only time will tell.
