Bryan Singer, director of X-Men: Days of Future Past, talks about the challenges of introducing the time-travel element to the popular franchise and creating ‘70s era
The future is dark for the heroes of the X-Men saga in Days of Future Past. A year-long world conflict between humans and mutants has taken its toll on their numbers and now a few remain, including professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Erik ‘Magneto’ lehnsherr (Ian McKellen), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Driven to near extinction by the technological terrors unleashed by Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the team forms a desperate plan: time travel.
Using Kitty Pryde’s powers, Wolverine’s consciousness will be sent back into his younger self in the 1970s, where he’ll have to track down and help the first class versions of the characters in order to stop Trask. But that will be even harder than it sounds. Director Bryan Singer shares more details about the film.
What drew you to Days of Future PastIJ
It happened over dinner, where Simon (Kinberg, writer/producer) said there it’s Matthew Vaughn, who was going to direct, and his desire to explore a way to incorporate the two casts. I said, ‘The only thing I can think of is time travel, and there’s a precedent for it in the comic book.’ I started to talk about different ways we could do that with Simon. He took those ideas back to Matthew and they began the early development of the script. When Matthew left the project, I then began trying to figure out how to crack the time travel and what would be our conceit for it. It was once I figured that out that I felt, ‘Okay, I’m ready to tell this story.’ Time travel stories are their own genre, they’re specific. You have to create a set of rules, like how the past affects the future, and then you have to stick to them. Once I figured out the mechanism how to do it, I warmed up to the notion very quickly. Plus, I very much wanted a chance to work with this new cast as a director because they only knew me as a producer and writer before. It also gave me a chance to work with my friends who were in the earlier pictures. It was a wonderful experience.
How challenging was it to introduce the time travel elementIJ
It was a little challenging in the script development stage, but again, once I cracked the concept and felt it made sense and Simon could write it, we could craft a story on a physical level, as well as an emotional one. I think what separates us from a lot of other comic book films is there’s a huge thematic element in the X-Men universe about outcasts and trying to belong and what side you’re on, and also an emotional aspect to it with the relationships of the characters. So once I started getting involved in that, it was great. I’ve always been fond of these characters and their relationships with one another.
How did you decide on the new mutants in the filmIJ
It was a diversity of powers. I didn’t have a Nightcrawler this time, so I decided Blink would be this movie’s version of that. I like Warpath as a character, there’s a lot of heart in him, and Sunspot is cool and stunning visually. And Bishop is a strong character, plus he has a weapon plugged into his body, which is something we haven’t seen before.
How do you go about differentiating the tone of the different erasIJ
It would mostly be colour. Obviously the ‘70s is brighter and more colourful, while the future is more monochromatic.
Were you conscious of presenting a realistic ‘70sIJ
My notion with the X-Men universe is always to make it as realistic and believable as possible, so I tried to create a very real 1970s. If you look at any of the footage from that era, particularly from some of the events we recreated like the Paris peace conference after the Vietnam War, it’s very realistic.
Is there going to be any connection to Apocalypse at the end of this filmIJ
There might be. I’m not sure. There’s an image that I’m toying with now that I may or may not include at the end of the credit days.