A New Villain For the X-MEN
Fresh on the heels of his turn in Star Wars: Episode VII, Oscar Isaacs has been cast as the villain Apocalypse in Fox’s next X-Men movie.
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse will pick up after Days of Future Past, and according to writer Simon Kinberg, is set in 1983. Director Bryan Singer says, “Apocalypse will have more of the mass destruction that X-Men films, to date, have not relied upon. There’s definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle.”
With a script by Kinberg, based on the story arc of the same name in the X-Men comics, Apocalypse will also (possibly) feature younger versions of Jean Grey and Scott Summers, up until now played by Famke Janssen and James Marsden. There’s also rumor of a romance between Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique as a driving thread in the plot.
Apocalypse is actually En Sabah Nur, translated as “The First One,” which suggests that he may be the first mutant. In the original comic, Professor Xavier is killed protecting Magneto from a time traveling Legion, and the alternate time line is “established” for everyone except Bishop (whom we saw in DOFP). When Magneto begins a campaign to unite humanity and mutants in the name of Xavier’s dream of peaceful co-existence, Apocalypse moves in with his war against humanity.
That’s the bare bones of the plot, which crossed over into several titles over a year’s time. Likely the main story will be the focus of the movie, although we can’t rule out a possible story for Gambit spinning out to a solo film from here.
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse will open May 27, 2016.
