Well, all of this year's comic book movies are pretty much squared away, with "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Dark Knight Rises" hitting theaters in the next month or so, we can now turn our attention to what's on the horizon, and early next year Matthew Vaughn will re-team with the cast of "X-Men: First Class" for a sequel. As usual, story details at the moment are being kept under lock and key, but that hasn't stopped nerds on the Internet from doing some digging, and some fresh intel has surfaced.
The folks over at AICN have been tipped off that 20th Century Fox has registered the title "Days Of Future Past" with the MPAA. Why is this significant? Well as comic fans know, that's the title of a two-issue story arc from 1981, and while we imagine it would be expanded/tweaked/refined on the way to the big screen, it does point to the possibility of a pretty ambitious story. But since we haven't it read it….to Wikipedia we go! Here's how they break down the plot:
The storyline alternates between present day, in which the X-Men fight Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and a future timeline caused by the X-Men's failure to prevent the Brotherhood from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly. In this future universe, Sentinels rule the United States, and mutants live in internment camps. The present-day X-Men are forewarned of the possible future by a future version of their teammate Kitty Pryde, whose mind traveled back in time and possessed her younger self to warn the X-Men. She succeeds in her mission and returns to the future, but despite her success, the future timeline still exists as an alternative timeline rather than as the actual future. (The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005 gave the numerical designation of "Days of Future Past" Earth as Earth-811).
Alternate timelines? Minds traveling back and forth through time? Internment camps? It's a lot to juggle, so we'll see how this bears out, but the idea of Mystique turning villainous does make sense without the comic book universe, and we're eager to see Jennifer Lawrence go bad with the character. But of course, none of this is official and who knows how much of this plot they'll use or keep or even if the title will remain. It could be a working title or a clever bit of intentional misdirection. Time will tell. "X-Men: Whatever It's Called" will hit theaters on July 18, 2014.