Evidently Bryan Singer’s “X-Men Days Of Future Past” is one of the most expensive movies 20th Century Fox has ever made. “I think this is the biggest movie Fox has made that James Cameron didn’t direct,” writer/producer Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: First Class”) told Entertainment Weekly in this week’s ‘DOFP’ cover story. “We have to deliver, and that’s really hard. Plus, we don’t use guns, we use powers. The power is a visual effect. So by its very nature, it’s going to be pricey,” producer Lauren Schuler Donner added.
Over $200 million? The magazine doesn’t say, but the film features dozens of character (25-ish main mutants give or take), the movie is set in two time periods (the 1970s and 2020s) and it takes place on six different continents.
Interesting plot details are confirmed in the latest issue if you haven’t guessed them already from some of the viral sites (*SPOILERS AHEAD*), trailers, photos, and overall marketing ephemera. The movie begins with the X-Men team in disarray. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is in prison, evidently for his role in the JFK assassination and Professor X, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is now a recluse living with Hank McCoy, a.k.a. the Beast (Nicholas Hoult). Admittedly, that’s a pretty enticing way to begin your tentpole. Of course the threat of the future, sentinels and the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) who travels back in time (sort of), jumpstart the story into action.
In case you haven’t already guessed it with the news of another X-Men movie already in the works for 2016 (“X-Men Apocalypse”) 20th Century Fox are thinking ambitiously and moving forward. “The hope is that ‘Days of Future Past’ will broaden the audience for X-Men such that it will motivate potential spin-offs even more,” Kinberg said. “Everyone grew up knowing Captain America or the Hulk, but not X-Men characters—I didn’t even know who Wolverine was,” Bryan Singer added. “I call X-Men the bastard stepchild of the comic universes.” Considering the X-Men movies have collectively grossed $2.3 billion worldwide so far, we’re not so sure the mutants are any longer the outsider misfits that Singer thinks they are.
A new “X-Men: Days of Future Past” featurette has also arrived to shed more light on the film and you can watch that below (plus an MTV teaser). ‘Days of Future Past’ opens May 23.