There is a LOT of info already on the X-Men: Apocalypse movie already. Me being a huge fan of the movies, comics and tv-shows could come in handy in this article. Let’s summarize what we know so far;
First off, the main character. The movie being titled “X-Men: Apocalypse”, we can expect… either an actual apocalypse or the character Apocalypse. In the after-credits scene of X-Men: Days of Future Past, we saw En Sabah Nur standing on some sand with some people building pyramids and stuff. All was very unclear. What we know about En Sabah Nur is that it means “the first one”. This means we can expect him to be the first known mutant. En Sabah Nur is also Apocalypse in the comics and the tv-shows; X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men.
Who will be playing this handsome, grey fella, you ask? That would be “Ex Machina”-star; Oscar Isaac. Could he pull it off? We’ll have to see for ourselves when the movie comes out on May 16th, 2016.
The joke that was made in the beginning of this article was just that, a joke. Of course we knew it was going to be about Apocalypse, duh. But who exactly is Apocalypse? What is this story about? Skip this paragraph if you’d like to avoid ANY spoilers on the storyline, although I doubt it will be exactly the same as in the comics.
Apocalypse had a sad youth. As we was the first living being to possess the X-gene (hence the name “En Sabah Nur”), side effects were his grey skin and blue lips. Due to these ‘odd’ looking features, he was abandoned and found again by Baal of The Sandstormers, who lived in a ‘survival of the fittest’ kind of way.
The time-traveller Kang the Conqueror arrives in Egypt and takes on the identity of Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Knowing who En Sabah Nur is fated to become and where he is, Rama-Tut sends his General Ozymandias to find Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur and Baal are injured and seek refuge in a cave. Before he dies, Baal reveals advanced alien technology hidden in the cave, left behind by Celestials. Vowing revenge on Rama-Tut, En Sabah Nur enters the Pharaoh’s city posing as a slave and draws the romantic attention of Ozymandias’s sister, Nephri. On seeing the mutant’s true appearance, Nephri rejects him and turns to her brother for protection. Very sad and angry, this causes him to become ‘evil’ and his mutant powers to emerge. [Marvel Wikia]
Now, this was all believed to happen like… 5000 years ago. This is not the case for X-Men: Apocalypse.
The events off X-Men: Apocalypse will take place about 10 years after X-Men: Days of Future Past. Meaning it will be around that time that a very young Cyclops, Storm and Jean will join the Xavier Institute.
What does this mean for the other characters? Who will be in this movie, which will not? The beloved Beast and Mystique will be in this movie, portrayed by X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past actors; Nicolas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence. Their characters will now be 21 years older than when we first saw these actors play these characters in X-Men: First Class (previously played by Kelsey Grammer and Rebecca Romijn).
Going back on the info we had on Cyclops, Storm and Jean, they will be in this movie. Yay! Their characters will not be played by James Marsden, Halle Berry and Famke Janssen. The young actors who will be taking on these roles for this movie are Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp and Sophie Turner. Let’s trust director Bryan Singer on this one ;).
Angel will also be returning! Not X-Men: First Class-Angel (Zoë Kravitz), though. Nope, it will be X-Men: The Last Stand-Angel. The one that cut off his wings, remember? He will be played by Ben Hardy.
Now switching to characters we have seen little to nothing of. Let’s see what we have so far.
Nightcrawler! One of my favourite main characters in the tv-series X-Men: Evolution. This character was first spotted in the MCU in the second X-Men film; X2: X-Men United, in which he was portrayed by Alan Cumming. This time, the younger version of Nightcrawler will be played by Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Seen on set was Olivia Munn as Psylocke. Psylockes abilities include telepathy and telekinesis (by far not as powerful as Jean Grey, though).
Bryan Singer also hired Lana Condor to play the part of Jubilee, one of the main characters in the 1990s tv-show.
Gambit will also making his debut into the MCU, portrayed by Channing Tatum. Could just be as a cameo, though.
One more character we have not discussed yet, but one who (almost) everyone loved in the last X-Men movie; Quicksilver, of course! Quicksilver has made two appearances so far, both played by different actors due to rights and stuff. There’s Peter Maximoff (X-Men, Evan Peters) and there’s Pietro Maximoff (Avengers, Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Evan Peters will be returning to play Peter Maximoff in X-Men: Apocalypse. If you all are as curious as I am, you might be wondering if they will be introducing Wanda Maximoff (twin) or continuing to explore the fact that Peter made a sneaky comment about his mom knowing someone who can control metal. Yes, Magneto is his dad. Sorta. It’s complicated.
One last thing to discuss; Magneto and Professor-X.
Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy did a marvellous (see what I did there?) job portraying younger versions of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart’s characters in the last 2 X-Men films. It has been a known fact for a while that Fassbender and McAvoy will be returning for the last film in the 2nd X-Men trilogy! One thing though; James McAvoy is bald. Let that sink in. His brown locks are gone.
Well, we can expect lots of new characters, old actors returning and some really intense baldness for this movie. Let’s just leave it here before I go nuts all over again for these movies (considering I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past seven times in the cinema when it came out).
