In the effort of being honest, I have an admission to make. One that will make the words that follow seem like sour grapes.

I “applied” to work at Cracked.com.

Applied in the sense that I signed up for their developmental workshop message boards, where writers can pitch stories that might one day make the website and get them paid. I haven’t submitted anything yet (and probably won’t after this) because I was trying to come up with the perfect pitch. One that was factually correct, stood up on its own, and made its argument forcefully yet logically.

JF Sargent. No, really.

As it turns out, that wasn’t really necessary. JF Sargent, who just happens to the be the moderator of that above workshop, posted an article on the site last week called, “5 Reasons Superhero Movies Are a Bubble That Will Soon Burst.” In it, he compares the popularity of comic book films to the “New Hollywood” era of film making, the period from 1967 to about 1982 where young filmmakers made a big splash and changed the face of cinema. The five “reasons” are five similarities Sargent thinks he sees between the two eras. His theory is because the “New Hollywood” era of film making flamed out, surely the superhero film era is also on its way there.

On the surface, it seems like it has the makings of a well researched piece of film criticism, one so logically sound that it can not be questioned. I mean, if Sargent proves that  one era hit the same number of landmarks in  the exact same way as another era did, why, certainly if first era dies, the other one will die in the same way, right?

Well, it might, if Sargent hadn’t made any glaring factual errors, fudged facts and history, and used subjective logic and “proof” all along the way. There are so many glitches  that his arguments go from sounding the definitive death knell for the comic book film to being what appears to be a sad bit of “wishful thinking” journalism.

How many? Well, let’s make a list of our own by going through his text. And we don’t have to wait long. It starts with the lead paragraph:

If you’re a lover of comic books, fantasy novels, or sci-fi, you should be in heaven right now. All of Hollywood caters to your tastes. Hell, if you’re under 20 years old, you don’t even remember what it’s like not to have Hollywood throw $2 billion worth of blockbuster movies at you every summer (while the rest of us remember that as recently as 1994 they made a Fantastic Four movie so bad, it couldn’t even be released).

1. The poor quality of the Fantastic Four film played little to no role in the project being shelved.

I explained as much here, but let me give you the pertinent graph:

There are two schools of thought over why the film was not released. One was that Constantin never intended to release the film at all, and essentially lied to all parties involved in the production just so the film could be made. Another says that Avi Arad, who would become head of Marvel Studios two years after the film was due to be released and helped usher in the success Marvel has had in recent years, paid Constantin and Concorde to shelve the movie because he didn’t want such a cheap production to taint the brand. Regardless, the film was never released either here or abroad, and only exists in a popular bootleg version you can find at most comic book conventions.

Granted, the film was shot for $1 million dollars, a sum way under what it would take to make a good FF film. It was cheap and it looked it. But the main factors at play seem to be the ones mentioned above. And Arad’s reason for putting the film on ice, as described on the very Wikipedia page Sargent linked to, seems less about how bad it was, but how little money was spent on it.

This might be splitting hairs, but it goes to establishing Sargent’s bona fides. The fact that he just casually mentions that the ’94 FF film was shelved was because it was awful, without even presenting an existing opposing point of view, shows a tendency to present only the “facts” that support his argument. Not a good start.

And while we’re here:

2. Sargent uses Wikipedia as a source. A lot.

Not long ago I was in college. I wrote a lot of papers. Wikipedia was strongly frowned upon as a source of information. Why? Because it is crowd-sourced. Anybody can edit an article there,and you can have it say whatever you want. Therefore, it’s not always very trustworthy to back up your arguments. Granted, some of Wikipedia”s articles are sourced, but in that case its better to use the original source.

Sargent’s list begins in earnest by stating both eras began with a surprise box office hit out of the blue. For “New Hollywood,” it was 1967′s Bonnie and Clyde. For the comic book era? It was a bunch of films that came out in the early 2000′s that overcame the superhero film-light 1990s. Let me let him tell you:

This changed in 2000 and 2001 when X-Men, Spider-Man, and the first The Lord of the Rings came out. Remember that back then those geek-centric movies were all pretty risky investments for the studios. Not only was this the first time that either of those Marvel superheroes would be seen on screen, but the last superhero movie to come out at that time had been Batman & Robin, which, you know, we’d rather not talk about. As for The Lord of the Rings, the last attempt at an adaptation was a godawful cartoon that was made in the 1980s.

3. Spider-Man came out on May 3, 2002.

Before you call me a nitpicker, here me out. The reason I make an issue out of this is because it is key to Sargent’s comparison that each era begin with a “big bang” if you will–one or more films that were a surprise success. Now, since the “New Hollywood” era is traced back to just one film, it suits Sargent’s argument better if the three “superhero” films came out in quick succession. But they didn’t. It took three years for all the films mentioned to come out.  And really, there were only two that are legit, and they came out two years apart. More on that later. But Spider-Man definitely came out in 2002, even Wikipedia got that right.

4. What about Blade?

If Sargent was looking for a comic book film that fit his analogy to a T, Blade is it. It was the first film where Marvel took a more active role in the production of the film, marking a new attention towards fidelity to the source material that Sargent marks as a trademark of the superhero film era. It was also an unknown property without a huge built in audience, so it was not a lock that it would be a success. But it was, it debuted at #1 at the box office just like Sargent’s other examples and made a sizable profit. If there was a film that ushered in the era of the superhero movie, it was Blade.

Why didn’t Sargent use Blade as the start of the superhero movie era? Perhaps he just didn’t know that Blade was a superhero. Or, maybe, for his point to work, for the narrative he was trying to create to gel, he had to create some distance the “last” comic book film, Batman and Robin, and the comic book film’s resurgence. Blade wouldn’t work here because it was released in 1998 and Batman and Robin was released in 1997. That would have meant the superhero film bounced back just 14 months after it’s nadir. And that weakens Sargent’s point almost completely.

Some of you might argue that Blade is not a superhero. He’s a vampire who fights vampires with his vampire powers. That is totally different than a superhero who fights supervillains with superpowers! Okay, but what about…

5. Frodo Baggins, Superhero!?!!?

Listen, determining who is and who isn’t a superhero is a popular topic of debate in comic shops across the country. Is the Punisher a superhero? Someone will that because he wears a costume, yes. Others will say that he doesn’t have any powers, so no. Then someone will bring up Batman, who wears a costume but has no powers, is he a superhero? Someone will say yes because he fights super-powered villains. But, the Punisher fought super-powered villains…well, you get the idea. If your loved one goes to their local comic shop and doesn’t come back for hours, it’s probably because they got sucked into one of these kinds of conversations.

But if you were to go into that shop and say that your favorite superhero was good ol’ Frodo, all sides of the argument would stop fighting amongst themselves,unite, and start arguing against you.

I mean, granted, Frodo has a ring that makes him invisible, and he hangs out with wizards, but he resides in the fantasy/sword and sorcery genre, not the superhero genre. And while fans of one genre often are fans of the other, the genres are not interchangeable. It would be a huge stretch of logic to consider them so.

But Sargent needs big films and big franchises to provide the tools to work with. So, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars become superhero movies, even though they really aren’t. For the casual reader, this probably won’t matter much. But to fans of the superhero film, the inclusion of these films invalidates Sargent’s argument from the get go. Because he’s not railing against the superhero film, he’s really railing against a larger target–the geek culture film. But I guess that wouldn’t generate as many hits.

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, The Mask, and Men in Black all came out in the 1990s.

Sargent likes to paint the 1990s as such:

In the ’90s, all of the major money-maker movies were Die Hard knockoffs (Con Air, Broken Arrow, Face/Off), sober explorations of tragedies (Dances With Wolves, Schindler’s List, Titanic), Adam Sandler being a dumbass, and Tom Hanks doing things that usually didn’t involve having superpowers.

First off, not including Speed in the list of Die-Hard knockoffs is a crime. It was Die Hard on a frikkin bus for goodness sakes!

Second, Sargent intends to show that the 90s were a dry period for the superhero movie. But they really weren’t. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, The Mask, and Men in Black all could be considered superhero films (if Frodo’s a superhero, then so is Agent J). They all came from comic books. All their lead characters fought crime in different ways. And all of them were box office hits in the comic book film unfriendly 1990s. Each one had at least one sequel, which is more than you can say for Sargent’s examples. And, lest we for get, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and, yes, Batman and Robin all were released in the 90s and all made a profit (yes, even Batman and Robin, when worldwide grosses are added in).

Who needs X-Men: Days of Future Past spoilers when Bryan Singer has a Twitter account?

The director is at it again, this time tweeting an image of everyone’s favorite furry scientist, the Beast.

As we can see above, we can tell this is an older version of the Beast by the patches of white and grey mixed in with the blue fur. But it looks like he is still part of the team (as we can see by the snatch of yellow on his shoulder) and it appears that it is Nicholas Hoult playing him. Well, it’s hard to tell with the make-up, but the shape of the face looks like Hoult’s.

It certainly doesn’t look like Kelsey Grammer. As we know, Grammer played the older Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand, and while Ellen Page made the jump from that film to Singer’s latest, perhaps this means that the Fraiser actor won’t.

Or this could just be a work up of some potential make-up and I am reading far too much into it.

I guess Bryan Singer got tired of tracking down his actors’ Twitter handles, because his latest cast reveal for X-Men:Days of Future Past  comes in the form of a picture. And as you can see above, the picture tells us a story–there are three heretofore unknown cast members. HINT: They are the last three on the bottom row.

Thanks to Brendon Connelly and his Little Bleeders over at Bleeding Cool, we have put names with head shots. And those names are Daniel Cudmore, Booboo Stewart, and Bingbing Fan. And yes  those last two are real actors and those are the names they really go by.

Daniel Cudmore should be no stranger to the fans of the X-Men films, as he played Colossus in X2: X-Men United and X-Men Last Stand. Since Colossus played such a pivotal part of the  comic book storyline, it is only fitting that the character would be in this version of it. Of course, Cudmore’s Colossus has really played as big a part in the film franchise as he does in the comic books, so his inclusion doesn’t really tells if the film will follow the comic closely.

Cudmore has been spending his X-Men film downtime appearing in the Twilight franchise, playing Felix. Perhaps Bryan Singer asked Cudmore for advice on what new actors to bring into the franchise, because new addition Booboo Stewart also starred in the Twilight franchise as well, playing Seth.

Booboo Stewart is the son of stuntman/actor Nils Allen Stewart (and Booboo’s given name, according to IMDB, is Nils Allen Stewart Jr. ) and has appeared in guest parts in numerous TV shows and movies over the years. Like his father, he has also worked as a stuntman as early as the age of 10. And if his involvement in the Twilight Saga wasn’t enough to get the Comic Con Illuminati up in arms, he also spent some time as a Disney tween pop star, touring with Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers.  Oh, and he also was a model. That’s quite a busy life and he’s not even twenty.

It is not know which X-Men character Booboo Stewart will be playing in the film, but our other new addition to the cast will be playing an iconic character from the books, according to Deadline.

Bingbing Fan is a Chinese actress who is quite famous in her native land, if she is rather unknown here in the States. Her films Double Xposure and Lost in Thailand, both released in 2012, broke box office records in China. She was also rumored to have been up for a role in Iron Man 3, but which role has not been confirmed.

What character will Fan play in Days of Future Past? She will play the mutant teleporter, Blink.

Blink debuted in comics in 1994 as part of the Phalanx Coveneant storyline and made only a few appearances before she was killed off. She proved popular enough that she was resurrected a year later as part of the alternate reality storyline, Age of Apocalypse, which occurred when a villain went back in time and killed Professor Xavier, allowing the villain Apocalypse to conquer the world. While that alternate reality didn’t last long, the character found life in the various volumes of Exiles, a superhero team consisting of heroes for various alternate universes banded together to keep all realities safe.

The inclusion of Blink’s character, and her connection to Apocalypse, might lend credence to the rumor that Apocalypse would be the bad guy of the film. And if you wish to extrapolate further, you could run with the theory that Days of Future Past will be a combination of the film’s namesake storyline and the Age of Apocalypse storyline, that it will be Xavier’, not a Senator’s or JFK’s, assassination that will bring on the dystopian future the time traveler is trying to avoid, and that the dystopian future in question will resemble the Age of Apocalypse.

Or, the script could simply call for a teleporter, and since Alan Cumming would be too busy to reprise his role as Nightcrawler, they picked another teleporter from the comic book canon to take his place. Could be that too.

Either way, we’ll find out more as the films 2014 release date approaches.

Days of Future Past ranks as one of the best storylines in the history of X-Men comic books. It’s not an epic by any standards–it only took up two issues of Uncanny X-Men–but it stands as a sterling example of compressed storytelling. In those two issues, Chris Claremont and John Byrne were able to create a dystopian future, establish a unique method of time travel, have an adventure in the present day, and left the story open-ended. It was more plot than you get in a full-year of most comics these days, and it was a more interesting story as well. It’s not one that could seamlessly translate into the X-Men movie universe, but, with a small bit of tweaking, could be turned into a legendary entry into the film franchise.

The X-Men villain Apocalypse, seen to the right, did not appear in the storyline at all. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even first appear in comics until five years after Days of the Future past ended. But when he debut, he did so with a splash. He became one of the main villains in the X-Men books through the 90s and the 00s, and was the focus of a number of large and important crossovers in the Marvel comic book universe.

Even though he did not appear in the comic book version of Days of the Future Past, there is a rumor getting steam that he might be appearing in the film version, X-Men: Days of Future past.

Brendon Connelly of Bleeding Cool spoke with that film’s director, Bryan Singer, while Singer was making the rounds promoting his latest film, Jack the Giant Slayer and Connelly believes he’s figured out who the villain of that film is going to be. I’ll let him tell you:

Now, we had been hearing a fair bit of buzz connecting this film to a certain fellow called Apocalypse. A bad guy, an ancient mutant – or more of an ancient god, really. The very first mutant from five thousand years ago, or so Rich tells me. In recent comics, Apocalypse has been cloned as a kid and enrolled at the Jean Grey school. And everyone is waiting for him to just destroy the world.

The themes of these recent comics aren’t too dissimilar to the ones Singer spelled out for me.

So, just mentioning Apocalypse might be a good idea…

On hearing the name Apocalypse, Singer’s face changed immediately but there was no point being timid. Might as well plough ahead with the question. Would he even consider using Apocalypse in the movies? How about in Days of Future Past?

His nervous answer:

I can’t tell you…

That was most interesting. So I leapt forward and asked if realising the character of Apocalypse would require performance capture.

And now Singer looked even more nervous.

This is how it gets started, when somebody starts piecing the little bits together…

The non-verbal communication was even more compelling than what Singer was saying. If I had to bet on it, I would – we’ll be seeing Apocalypse in Days of Future Past, and he’s probably going to be a performance capture character.

Now, this really isn’t a confirmation of a rumor. It’s speculation by Connelly based on what Singer said, how he said it, and how Connelly read his body language when he said it. While Singer didn’t deny Apocalypse as the bad guy, he didn’t overwhelmingly confirm it. At least, not for me he didn’t.

What do I think of this rumor? Well, Apocalypse wasn’t one of my favorite Marvel villains. So I have no deep love of the character to start out with. But, in my opinion, the story doesn’t need him as the villain. As a matter of fact, shoehorning Apocalypse in as the bad guy would be worse for the movie than if  they kept it as faithful to the comics as they possibly can (which it seems more and more like they aren’t going to do anyway). Also, Apocalypse is a villain who might be “too big” for the movie universe. The X-Men films, as fantastic as they are, are rooted for the most part in reality. Introducing a centuries old mutant with every power imaginable requires too big a leap from the feel of the other films.

I guess we’ll find out more in the months ahead, but Cynical Bill hopes this is one rumor that doesn’t come true.

1. Jack the Giant Slayer (Warner Brothers/New Line, 3,525 Theaters, 114 Minutes, Rated PG-13):I find it hard to remember that this film is based on a fairy tale.

There is a lot going for it. It is directed by Bryan Singer (whose days of films like Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil is now gone, I suppose),the script was reworked by Christopher McQuarrie, and stars Nicholas Hoult, an actor I’m increasingly impressed with.

But still, it is adapted from a fairy tale, a disturbing trend in today’s cinema, especially since the works are being adapted for a teen and adult audience. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, as Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters can tell you.

This one? Well, instead of ticking of just one giant, Jack reawakens a war between the giants and humans.

2. 21 and Over (Relativity, 2,771 Theaters, 93 Minutes, Rated R): If this strikes you as the young adult version of The Hangover, give yourself a star for thinking that.

Co-writers and co-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore co-wrote that film. So, if you are going to rip off another concept, why not make it your own.

Instead of a bachelor party, a group of friends help their one of their number’s 21st birthday. Of course, the night of debauchery gets way out of hand, and his friends have to keep track of the birthday boy and sober him up enough for his medical school interview the next day.

3. The Last Exorcism Part II (CBS Films, 2,700 Theaters, 88 Minutes, Rated PG-13): I thought The Last Exorcism would be the Last Exorcism. That film should now be renamed The Second-to-Last Exorcism or, if they want to be optimistic, An Exorcism That Hopefully Will Lead Up To One Last Exorcism, Someday.

This sequel abandons the “found footage” style of the first one and goes with a more straight forward narrative.

The film follows Nell as she tries to get on with her life after the event of the first film. Unfortunately for her, the experience has made it onto the Internet, not only making it difficult to get new friends, but also causing old demons to come back and try to sway her to their side.

4. Phantom (RCR Distribution, 2,000+ Theaters, 97 Minutes, Rated R): And then there’s this one. It might be tacky to say that a film about a submarine might be sailing under the radar, but this film has sailed under mine.

Ed Harris plays a Russian sub commander during the Cold War who was charged with a dangerous secret mission. This mission is complicated by the presence of a rogue KGB agent (David Duchovny) who wants to change the mission parameters to serve his own ends. If he succeeds, it could bring on a Third World War.

A tale of political intrigue set on a Russian submarine calls to mind The Hunt for Red October. If this film is as half as good as that one, it might be worth a shot.

Peter Dinklage is the latest addition to the cast of superheroes who will be featured in the upcoming X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Director Bryan Singer broke the news last night on twitter –

Officially like to welcome #PeterDinklage from #GameOfThrones to #XMEN #DaysofFuturePast Very very excited!

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) February 14, 2013

Singer pointedly did not mention whom Duinklage will be playing, but most comics fans, including myself, are pegging the actor to play the Canadian superhero Puck. For the unintiated, Puck is a member Alpha Flight, a group of superheroes sponsored by the government of Canada. In the comics, his origin is tied into a story about an evil ancient sorcerer called Black Raazer, though I suspect that that part will undergo revision to fit into the straight science-fiction tone that Singer has established for the X-Men franchise.

Although it has been several years since I have read it, I don’t recall Puck playing a role in the original Chris Claremont-authored comic book storyline on which writer Simon Kinberg is basing his script. Perhaps Kinberg is using Puck to replace another character, maybe a mutant hero previously seen in the franchise but whose actor is unavailable?

While it is great to see Singer taking a deeper dive into the pool of characters that studio Twentieth Century Fox owns, I am starting to get concerned over the number of heroes that we already know will be in the film. We already have a number of returning characters from X-Men: First Class (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult) and the original X-Men trilogy (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore) lined up to appear in Days Of Future Past. How many more are in store? Hopefully, this parade of characters will all have vital reasons for being included and isn’t just the insistence of a studio head who saw The Avengers and only came away with the idea that “more superheroes = more money at the box office.”

X-Men: Days Of Future Past starts filming later this spring for a July 18, 2014 release.

If there was a problem with X-Men: First Class, it was that it didn’t quite jibe with the Bryan Singer X-Men films. Even though the film was supposed to take place in the same continuity as the X-Men films that came before it, but there were glaring changes (the Beast being a beast far earlier than 2003, Xavier getting crippled in 1962 yet walking in 1980, Mystique losing a personality) that made the connection very shaky.

That shouldn’t be a problem with the film’s sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, because it’s quickly turning out that most of the cast will be made up of actors from the first three X-Men films. Singer has announced via Twitter that three more of the cast members from those films will be joining Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen in Days of Future Past.

Very excited to welcome #annapaquin, @ellenpage & @shawnrashmore to #XMen #DaysofFuturePast – thank you @brettratner for letting them live!

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) January 26, 2013

Anna Paquin (Rogue) and Shawn Ashmore (Iceman) were cast by Singer for the first X-Men film and appeared in all three. Ellen Page, however, was cast by Brett Ratner as a replacement for Katie Stuart in X-Men: The Last Stand when the role of Kitty Pryde was made larger. Good to see Singer isn’t holding that against her.

The only question we have is, “who’s next?” Let’s run down who’s left from the original films who as of yet have not been confirmed as having a role in the film.

• James Marsden and Famke Janssen: While both Cyclops and Jean Grey died in Last Stand (uh, spoilers), they could both show up here. Marsden is a Singer favorite (he brought the actor with him when he did Superman Returns) and his death technically was off screen. Janssen is another story entirely. Although the actress is rumored to have a cameo in The Wolverine, most of the press for that movie makes a point of saying that it follows Last Stand. I think, and this is just blind speculation, her cameo will be in a flashback to the end of that third film where Wolverine killed Jean Grey to save the world (uh, more spoilers?). So, as it stands, I think Jean Grey is dead in this continuity, and Cyclops might still be alive. So Marsden is more likely than Janssen. Of course, with time travel, you could make it so both are alive. Anyway…
• Halle Berry: Rumor has it that she will be reprising her role as Storm in this film. Rumor also has it that she and Singer didn’t get along in those first two films. From a plot aspect, it seems like she is a no brainer to return considering who else is coming back. And it is not going be a large time spent with Singer. But if she was coming back, it should have been officially announced by now, don’t you think?
• Tyler Mane/ Liev Schreiber:  The two men that played Sabretooth. Odds are the scenes these actors appear in will be dystopian future (present?) where all mutants have to band together to fight off extinction. So, bad guys and good guys will come together. Whether or not Sabretooth makes the cut is anybody’s guess, and who would play him is an even bigger mystery. Will it be Mane, who Singer cast yet played the character as a monosyllabic brute, or the charismatic Schreiber, who played the character in a film producers are pretending never existed? Probably option three: avoid the problem and keep him out of the film.
• Ray Park: Toad didn’t have that big of a part in the first film, but the character did make it quite far into the process in X2: X-Men United. That might show that Singer has an affinity for the character. Or not.
• Rebecca Romijn: Romijn already had a cameo in First Class playing and adult version of Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique. Also, if the film wants to follow the comic book story, a member of the X-Men in the future will have to have their consciousness sent back in time to inhabit a younger version of themselves. In the comics, it was Kitty Pryde. That doesn’t play here. Odds are it won’t be either Xavier or Magneto sent back. So, the most likely candidate would be Mystique. I can’t see why Romijn won’t be coming back.
• Alan Cumming: He was cast by Singer to play Nightcrawler in X2 and planned to have a cameo in Last Stand. However, the cameo was scrapped supposedly because the cost of the makeup against the amount of screen time didn’t make sense, budget wise. Unless the cost has gone down considerably in seven years, Cumming is dubious at best.
• Aaron Stanford: He played Pyro in X2 and Last Stand. His rivalry with Iceman played a big part in both those films. Now that Ashmore is on board, could he be added to the cast? Maybe.
• Daniel Cudmore: Colossus plays a big part of the comic book story the film is based on, but a lot of that plays on the relationship the character had with Kitty Pryde in the comics, one that didn’t carry over to the film. Still, having Colossus in the film would be a nice bit of fan service, and Cudmore was the only one to play him.
• Kelsey Grammer: Beast is one of the few characters to appear in both the original trilogy and First Class. However, Grammer is two years away from being 60-years-old. Not to be ageist, but that might be a little too old for him to reprise his role as a bouncy furry monster.
• Ben Foster: He’s a good actor who would not be above doing a cameo. But his character of Angel in Last Stand was essentially a MacGuffin–not give much development other than what was need to move the plot along. Foster and the character deserved better, but as it stands, I doubt they’d bother to bring either back. See also Cameron Bright (Leech from Last Stand)
• Vinnie Jones, Dania Ramirez, Eric Dane or the rest of Magneto’s crew in Last Stand: While there are recognizable names in the mix, their characters were even less developed than Angel or Leech. Their involvement would only be as cannon fodder, and I doubt the actors would come back just for that.
• Taylor Kitsch and Ryan Reynolds: As I see it, these guys have three strikes against them. 1). They are all fairly major stars (even Kitsch, whose horrible 2012 hasn’t stopped him from getting prominent roles); 2) neither Gambit nor Deadpool has appeared in the main franchise, instead they 3) appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the film producers of The Wolverine have stated their movie was essentially rebooting. Doubtful they’d make an appearance here.

We’ll see how this all plays out in the coming weeks and months. X-Men: Days of Future Past arrives in theaters on July 18, 2014.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is getting the feel of Bryan Singer putting the band back together. The Hollywood Report brings us an exclusive that another member of Singer’s original X-Men cast might be appearing in the X-Men: First Class sequel.

The magazines Heat Vision blog is quoting sources stating that Hugh Jackman is in negotiations to reprise his Wolverine character for Singer in the film.

One would think that negotiations will go well, as Jackman played Wolverine in First Class,  and his cameo was one of the main reasons why the film got a PG-13 rating.

With Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen in the cast, Singer has reunited the three most vital parts of the original trilogy. The question now is who, if anybody, will be next? Will Rebecca Romijn expand HER First Class cameo for the sequel? Will Kelsey Grammer return to play the future Beast now that Nicholas Hoult is back as young Beast? What about Halle Berry and Anna Paquin? Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting Ellen Page to return?

The situation, as they say, is developing.

At one point, you would have needed a subscription to the Hollywood trades to get the latest casting announcements for your favorite films. Now, all you need is a Twitter account.

Bryan Singer, who is returning to directing the X-Men franchise with X-Men: Days of Future Past, has tweeted that Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart have joined that film’s cast.

McKellen and Stewart have played Magneto and Professor Xavier for Singer in X-Men and X2: X-Men United and for Brett Ratner in X-Men: The Last Stand. The roles were played by Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy in X-Men: First Class, the film of which Days of Future Past is a sequel to. Fassbender and McAvoy have also been confirmed by Singer as returning from that film, along with Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) and Nicholas Hoult (Beast).

It seems logical that the casting of Stewart and McKellen confirms that the film version of Days of Future Past will partly mirror comic book version of the story. The comic book dealt with a dystopian future where a politician’s assassination by mutant extremists results in the government creating mutant-hunting robots called Sentinels. These robots ended up killing most of the super powered residents of the world. The few survivors come up with a last-ditch plan to save what’s left of the world–a powerful telepath would send the consciousness of one of the remaining survivors back in time into a younger version of themselves in the hopes of preventing the assassination and keep the dark future from ever coming into being.

Of course, some changes are to be expected. In the comics, the “past” was the present day and the “future” was the, well, future. Here, the “past” will be the 1960s of the first film, and “future” will be the present day of the previous X-films. The telepath in question in the comics was Rachel Summers, daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, a character not as yet introduced in the films franchise (and most likely will never be). And the mutant survivor sent back was Kitty Pryde, who in the film franchise would only be in her 20s in what appears to be the future they are using, and wasn’t even alive in the 60s. And the politician killed was Senator Robert Kelly, who already made his entrance and exit in the first X-Men.

Another complication is how X-Men: The Last Stand ended for Magneto and Professor X. Consider this a SPOILER WARNING for that film (although for many of you, that film was probably spoiled when Ratner signed on to direct it.).

At the end of The Last Stand, Xavier was seemingly killed by Jean Grey by essentially being disintegrated. And Magneto was given the cure that left him powerless. While the final scene of the film hinted that Magneto was getting his powers back, the button scene indicated that Xavier was able to transfer his consciousness into a younger man with a serious brain injury. It is highly unlikely this person resembled Patrick Stewart in any way, shape or form.

These are things that need to be addressed if Magneto and Professor X are to be active in the future segments of Days of Future Past. Any fan of time travel fiction can tell you numerous ways where this can be answered, so it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. But the answer hopefully will be more than “that film never existed.”

Singer ended his tweet with “more to come,” which teases that there could be more members of the original films’ cast making an appearance, a rumor that has been spread for quite a long time.

Bryan Singer, who launched Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men comic book adaptation franchise is returning to its director’s chair to helm the next installment – X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Singer will be taking the place of X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn, who vacated the job last week.

This is not the first time that Vaughn has left the franchise. After he directed the first two installments of the X-Men franchise, Singer headed over to Warner Brothers to do Superman Returns. Vaughn was initially hired for the third X-Men film X3: X-Men United, but left when he felt that there was not enough time to revise the script to a point where he would be happy with it before he needed to start filming in order to make the film’s studio-mandated release date. Evidently there were no hard feelings over Vaughn’s departure as he was brought back to helm the prequel X-Men: First Class.

Vaughn’s imprint will still be on the film however, as he wrote the treatment that scripter Simon Kinberg worked off of. Vaughn worked off of the popular comic storyline of the same name, though presumably he had to make adjustments to fit the story into the film franchise’s differing continuity.

Production on the project should be starting soon as Fox has the film scheduled for a July 18, 2014 release. If you can’t wait until then for your dose of mutant superhero action, the studio has the franchise installment The Wolverine debuting July 26, 2013.