In a little over one month, Bryan Singer will reveal the first look at X-Men: Apocalypse, the final chapter of the current X-Men trilogy. But, despite the fact that the movie will be released on the 27th of May, we still aren't certain of too many things about it.
Besides a brief official synopsis and the few teases made by the director himself, we are still out in the dark. The following are just a few questions unanswered thus far:
- How will Apocalypse awaken?
- Why did he settle on those particular mutants for his 4 Horsemen?
- Is Professor X going to be seduced by his power, as the Comic Con trailer hinted? And will this be the reason why he loses his hair?
- How important will be the parts of the younger mutants?
- Who are those to die, in order to establish how big a threat Apocalypse is?
And this list can continue. However, fortunately and as said, there are a few things that we know about this movie - either it will be some continuity stuff, either it will be the comic book source, either it is something teased by the marketing campaign. So here are 5 things that we can bet to happen in X-Men: Apocalypse!
Destruction on a worldwide scale
The director, as well as one of the producers of X-Men: Apocalypse (Simon Kinberg) have said plenty of times that this will be the biggest X-Men movie to date, which will engulf the entire world. But we don't need to take their word for granted - after all, it may as well be a marketing trick to attract the masses.
Instead, we can check out some of the teases made by the director. More than once, he posted on his social accounts pics (and small clips) from the set, depicting various places around the world. Most interestingly, one of them featured the new Storm, gazing into the distance over Cairo. Another pic, this time without the mutant in the frame, showed a market of some sorts, also in Egypt - this time, there is rubble all over the place, hinting that Storm made it into her hometown and laid it to waste.
As the official character description revealed, Apocalypse recruits as his Horsemen the mutants who are the easiest to manipulate, because of their social/mental/physical condition - Storm growing up on the rough streets of Cairo, Magneto wondering around after tragedy hit him once again, a captive Angel and Psylocke. And these mutants are all gathered from all over the world.
And if Storm comes back to her hometown in order to exert her revenge, we can bet that the other mutants will do the same.
And we are most interested about what Magneto will do once he gets back to Germany and what Professor X will do in order to stop him (if he will still be alive at that time or if he didn't join Apocalypse as well).
More character development
The X-Men movies aren't just about mindless action, though - they are also about the development of the characters. So we can expect for X-Men: Apocalypse to continue this trend next year too - especially those characters who have become the main heroes of this new trilogy.
While Nicholas Hoult's Beast brings more to the plot then what the former one did, he was until now only a secondary character - and we can bet that X-Men: Apocalypse will remedy that. However, what we are more interested in are the other 3 characters: Mystique, Professor X and Magneto.
In this article, it was already revealed that Mystique will become the leader of the X-Men - after the events of Days of Future Past, she will have to take on a mantle of responsibility (which makes us believe even more that, in one way or another, Professor X will be out of the equation), effectively becoming the leader of the new team.
Then we also have Quicksilver, who only appeared in Days of Future Past, but who will have a bigger role in X-Men: Apocalypse - thus, he will be searching for his father, though we don't know yet whether or not he knows who that is.
Finally, we have the best relationship in all the X-Men movies - the one between Charles and Erik. Old friends, new enemies, their interactions will be the ones to provide the meat of the movie. In the Comic Con trailer, we saw Magneto using his power to pull Professor X towards Apocalypse - what happens afterwards?
Can we expect for Magneto to have a change of heart and fight against the most powerful mutant in the world? Or will someone else help to bring him down?
Fleeting cameos
In a way, Days of Future Past was a cameo-fest, with many characters and actors having just a few minutes of screen time (we're not complaining, on the contrary!) Will X-Men: Apocalypse play the same card, especially since it has so many known characters involved in the action? Most likely, it will be so (for example, Havok and Stryker were already announced - and since Apocalypse will want to take over the world,
However, there are some other cameos we can't wait to see in this movie. Thus far, Gambit making an appearance is a far away rumor, debunked by Channing Tatum himself (or was he misleading us?)
The other cameo comes from Hugh Jackman, whose character is the one who appeared in all the X-Men movies until now. Thus far, he hasn't been officially confirmed - however, the end credits scene for his second Wolverine flick, as well as the announcement made by goods brand KikaNY make us believe that he will indeed be in the movie. It cannot be any other way, since the first concept art for the movie featured a character assuming his stance and facing what seemed to be a Celestial ship.
So yes - X-Men: Apocalypse will also feature many cameos, continuing the trend which began with First Class. But, among these all, we cannot wait to see Wolverine again, since we believe that he will be the one to make a difference in the end.
He will be in X-Men: Apocalypse, even if no official statement was released - and then his story will end in 2017 with Old Man Logan!
X-Men: Apocalypse - rewriting history
If First Class was at first believed to be a soft reboot, it is more than evident now that it was more than that. Its follow-up, Days of Future Past, completely erased the timeline presented until then - can we expect for X-Men: Apocalypse to do the same?
Yes, we can do that, when we are talking about the original trilogy. Even if characters which appeared starting from 2000 will be seen next year also, this doesn't mean that they will be living the same life. For example, the Angel from the original trilogy was fine and dandy, even if hiding that he was a mutant, X-Men: Apocalypse will see him in a different situation: competing in underground fighting rings in Berlin.
And this is just an example.
But what makes it all even more exciting is that nobody is safe - everybody is in peril, thus increasing the suspense. And this is very much needed, especially when it comes to big comic book movies, where continuity usually spoils everything. And we will mention once again the possibility that the leader of the X-Men will perish.
Continuing the adult-themed superhero genre
Even if many say that Marvel Studios would have made a better Mutant Cinematic Universe, we don't believe that - the X-Men films are about the minority struggling against the majority. And you cannot sugarcoat it and present it in a lightly manner.
Just as a reminder, the X-Men films have presented quite a few scenes which wouldn't have made it into the MCU - senator Kelly transforming into a jelly-like being (body horror), X2's jail escape when Magneto pulled all the iron out of a guard's blood, drug addiction, a few fucks thrown for good measure (First Class), and so on.
But this isn't all - the X-Men movies are also managing to present the threats as compelling as possible. Even more, there is an ideology behind all of them - and we can expect for X-Men: Apocalypse to feature the same kind of villain. According to Simon Kinberg, Apocalypse actually believes that he needs to cleanse the world for a new and less chaotic one to be born, populated only by those who deserve it.
Since we mentioned the MCU, we can say that Ultron wanted, basically, the same thing - but the movie itself didn't meet our expectations. Hopefully, X-Men: Apocalypse will.
