X-Men: Apocalypse Bringing Back Another Villain From The Previous Films

As we learned at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, Brian Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse is going to be chock full of bad guys, with the titular villain played by Oscar Isaac using his powers of persuasion to get the likes of Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel (Ben Hardy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to join his cause. However, the evil ancient mutant and hise Four Horsemen won't be the only antagonistic forces present in the upcoming movie, as it has been confirmed that the film will see the return of Josh Helman as the mutant-despising Maj. William Stryker.

The character was first introduced into the live-action X-Men franchise when Brian Cox played an older version of him in X2: X-Men United, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine had him being played by Danny Huston, but now it's been confirmed that Josh Helman will be the first actor to portray the comic book villain twice (having previously played him in X-Men: Days of Future Past). Bryan Singer himself confirmed Helman's return earlier today, posting a new photo and message on his personal Instagram account:

A photo posted by on

What's interesting about this announcement, however, is that we can't say for certain at this stage if Josh Helman will actually be playing William Stryker in X-Men: Apocalypse, or if he's merely appearing as someone pretending to be William Stryker. I ask this question because the last time we saw the character in X-Men: Days of Future Past it appeared as though Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique had stolen his identity, and was pretending to be the Major while capturing Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. Without any more information to go on, it's hard to determine what the nature of Helman's performance in the blockbuster will be.

It's nice that Bryan Singer is bringing Josh Helman back for X-Men: Apocalypse, if not only because the actor's experience in the franchise to this point has been rather unconventional. When he first signed on to X-Men: Days of Future Past, he was actually going to play a young version of Juggernaut (the unstoppable mutant portrayed by Vinnie Jones in X-Men: The Last Stand). The production ultimately decided to substitute Quicksilver into the sequence where Juggernaut was going to appear, but Helman wasn't simply told to hit the bricks. Instead, Singer decided to have him stay on as Styrker, and now he's getting the opportunity to play the role a second time.

X-Men: Apocalypse is in production now up in Toronto, and in addition to all of the impressive names mentioned in this article, the movie also stars James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Lana Condor

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.