Fox’s decision to hire Mark Millar as a creative consultant on their Marvel properties is a win-win for the studio and fans. For the business side of things, he’ll get to work with talent including Bryan Singer, Matthew Vaughn, James Mangold and Josh Trank to create a cohesive universe shared by the X-Men and the upcoming reboot of Fantastic Four.
For the fans however, Millar will happily and openly talk about things the studio may not want him talking about just yet. First he hinted at a Fantastic Four and X-Men crossover down the line, and now, he’s teasing what moviegoers will see in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Director James Mangold is currently shooting The Wolverine with star Hugh Jackman, and as we speak, Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn are putting together the screenplay for the series’ next installment, X-Men: Days of Future Past, which aims to redefine, and potentially relaunch the franchise.
When Bryan Singer confirmed the rumors that X-Men: First Class 2 would be indeed be based on Days of Future Past, he guardedly admitted that it would ambitiously tap into the much larger X-Men universe and blow it up, so to speak, in order to compete with the larger-scale events and crossovers we’re seeing from Marvel Studios with The Avengers and the six confirmed followup films.
In chatting with SFX magazine, Millar – who’s spending a lot of time on the set of Kick-Ass 2 – briefly discussed Matthew Vaughn’s plans for the next X-Men movie which begins shooting early next year.
“Vaughn is going for a big sci-fi style thing with X-Men: Days of Future Past.”
He described Days of Future Past as “X-Men meets The Terminator,” and continued, saying that for fans of the books, it’s “no spoiler” to reveal that the First Class sequel will explore an apocalyptic future.
“You’ve got robots, you’ve got time travel, you’ve got superheroes – it’s got everything in one film… Cost-wise it’s going to go up, and ambitious-wise it’s gone up. But Vaughn can handle it. Vaughn made Kick-Ass for $28 million.”
Our own Kofi Outlaw described the future depicted in the Days of Future Past storyline as something out of the Terminator universe and it’s appropriate that Millar does the same. For fans who’ve waited years for it to happen (and we’re not counting that tease in the beginning of X-Men 3), we’re finally going to see Sentinels grace the screen.
For those unfamiliar with the mechanical beasts, Sentinels are giant anti-mutant killing machines. They range in size and there have been plenty of iterations of them through the years in the books, games and even the cartoons, but they’re typically purplish in color, humanoid in shape, and stand several stories tall.
If Fox, Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn ever wanted to up the action ante and deliver what would one of the most ambitious action set pieces seen in a comic book movie, having the X-Men (the original trilogy’s team and that of the First Class quasi-prequel) face off against an army of Sentinels would be the way to do it. Maybe Hugh Jackman can fight one solo and it’ll look like this.
And how cool would it be to see the time-travelling soldiers Cable and Bishop join the fray?
Matthew Vaughn Bryan Singer will direct X-Men: Days of Future Past with returning stars Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jason Flemyng, who could be joined by the return of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, James Marsden, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore. Stay tuned!
The Wolverine releases July 26, 2013 and X-Men: Days of Future Past hits theaters on July 18, 2014.
–
Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.
Sentinels art by psdguy.
