As we learn more about the story driving the next X-Men movie, Days of Future Past, the more it became clear that actors who played versions of the big-screen’s Marvel mutants would have to factor into the sequel/prequel in some way. There were rumors that Patrick Stewart wanted to come back and play Professor Charles Xavier (a role that had been assumed by James McAvoy in the smash hit X-Men: First Class). And now that rumor – as well as some other major casting announcements – are being confirmed.
Bryan Singer, who has agreed to return to the X-Men franchise to helm Days after Matthew Vaughn walked away, took to Twitter to share that Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen would be in the planned film, reprising their roles as Prof. X and Magneto. The two played these parts in Singer’s first two X-Men movies, as well as Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand (where Stewart’s Xavier actually died … sort of). And while they weren’t part of Vaughn’s prequel, that movie did pull in Hugh Jackman’s Logan for an amusing cameo.
On his same Twitter feed, Singer welcomed original stars McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult back for Days, so we’ll see younger versions of Magneto, Beast and Mystique in the planned story. Days follows a very popular X-Men story that involves time travel, with an older Kitty Pryde transferring her mind back to her former self to warn the present-day X-Men about the horrors of a dystopian future.
Does this mean we might see Ellen Page reprising Kitty Pryde from Last Stand? It’s possible. Either way, it sounds like Singer’s mounting a proper adaptation of this infamous X-Men storyline. What do you think about the return of Stewart and McKellen to the X-Men universe?
