20th Century Fox's X-Men movies haven't always pleased fans, but for the most part, Chris Claremont likes what the studio has done with Marvel's merry band of mutants. Talking to Newsarama recently, the writer was asked to share his thoughts on the upcoming adaptation of X-Men: Days of Future Past. It's currently unknown just how much of the original storyline will make it to the big screen, but the fact that so many past cast members have been brought back into the fold has led fans to believe we will at least get a reasonably faithful version.
"The challenge, I would think, for Bryan is that the heart of the original story is not the fight with the Brotherhood back in the present day. The challenge, the story, is actually what happens in the future. Getting them to the point where you can send Kitty back, and seeing the consequences of what will happen if they fail, and not knowing at the end how it's going to turn out. You think it's going to be a happy ending, but you're not sure, because pretty much everybody dies — in the comic, anyway. You can't not be invested. That's pretty much most of my working life, dancing around or through the X-Men as a concept."
"You could look at it as time travel, or you could look at it as pan-dimension. It's all a matter of how you want to define it, and I'm sure they've got some brainiacs out on the left coast earning a small research stipend figuring out a plausible way of making it fly. That's the fun and games of Hollywood. How the hell they're going to fit it into 120 minutes, I have no sodding idea. I'd be looking on this as your basic 1974 film with an intermission."
"In movies it's a one-shot item too often. If we're doing Days of Future Past, we need Ororo, we need Logan. OK, we've got Hugh Jackman, but that means we've got to get Halle Berry. I'm sure some accountant at Fox is going, 'Huh? 'We're talking how much?' On the other hand, you never know when a major talent is willing to do a Scarlett Johansson, and come in perhaps at scale, just for the fun of it. The really nice thing with Future Past is that you actually have a superhero film — much to everyone's surprise, I will hope — that is about something. It's about racism, I hope. It's about resisting oppression. It's about fighting for freedom and the cost of fighting for freedom. I will be fascinated to see how they weave the two together."
You can read more of Claremont's comments on the past and future comic book movies from Fox by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page. Do you agree with what he has to say about
X-Men: Days of Future Past? Be sure to sound off with your thoughts in the usual place!
STARRING:
James McAvoy as Charles Xavier
Michael Fassbender as Magneto
Nicholas Hoult as Beast
Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine
Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier
Ian McKellen as Magneto
Shawn Ashmore as Iceman
Anna Paquin as Rogue
Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde
RELEASE DATE: July 17th, 2014.