Ian McKellen will play Magneto in the X-Men spin-off movie, according to John Bruno, X-Men: The Last Stand FX supervisor by way of Superhero Hype. The movie has been touted as a prequel/origin story so it's likely that McKellen would portray the mutant at his present age, flashbacking to the past, rather than as a young man.
This was borne out by comments made by outgoing Marvel Studios exec Avi Arad who talked with iF Magazine. The Magneto movie, he said, would be "starting with a younger version. It's the story of Magneto's life, and it will span some years."
Also, previously, Arad had indicated the Wolverine spin-off film would be a X-Men 3 sequel, but in this interview he back-peddled. "I don't want to call it a prequel nor a sequel. It is Wolverine's story and it is really concentrating on him. It's about his life, his mysteries, and his loves. It's not really a prequel or a sequel. It's just a story like in the comics where we have X-Men, Wolverine, and books dealing with the other X-Men. Obviously, Wolverine is the number one X-man, and deserves his own story. Hugh Jackman will make the story that much more compelling."
What about X4? "There's always a chance of an X-MEN sequel. It's more of an issue of what is the next X-Men story, and when to do it. The X-Men universe is forever and ever, and it's the number one comic book. There are an endless amount of stories and great sagas that can go into the future, the past, and the present. There are so many more characters that we didn't deal with yet. It's such a rich world. I would not preclude anything."
As for characters who died during X3, "You heard what was said in the classroom right?," Arad said. "How things were explained to the students, what's possible. When you look at the way these people [de]materialize when the Phoenix erupts, just reverse it and who knows?"
Actor James Marsden who plays Scott Summers/Cyclops told Comics Continuum: "I was presented with a concept for the third film. With that presentation came the fact that Scott meets his demise," Marsden said. "But also with the idea, nobody really dies in the X-Men universe. So there's a sort of feeling we can do these movies forever with the same characters. So we'll see."
Patrick Stewart (Prof. X) added: "I've disappeared from massive sections of these movies for one obvious reason, you cannot put Xavier in the middle of an action sequence," Stewart said. "So the moment they start building to that, they've got to find a way of dumping him. And this time they found a very effective way of doing it."
Stewart told 20th Century Fox head Tom Rothman: "what would be the implication about Xavier not making it to the end of the movie?" Stewart said. "What if we lost Xavier? What would this mean? And if we were to do that, in what way might he somehow, be cold frozen, so we could bring him back if we want to?"
He also talked it over with director Brett Ratner. "He said 'I told them they're crazy. They can't kill you off. It's a mad idea. How can you kill off Professor Xavier? He is the X-Men. It's not going to happen. We're going to find some exciting things to do.' Of course, all this, for me, was just words in the air because, along with a lot others, we haven't seen any pages."
It was suggested to Stewart that at least the filmmakers gave Xavier the last word, according to Comics Continuum. "Indeed, they do," he said. Fans who stay through the end-credits of the movie get to hear those words.
As for Jean Grey/Phoenix (played by Famke Janssen), it is noted that her character has seemingly died before. In the comics, after the demise of Phoenix, Jean Grey returned once more as Marvel Girl.
Regarding the DVD of X-Men 3, Arad said: "We didn't cut anything for time, but we had things that we did specifically for the DVD. There are always choices, and lots of coverage. When you shoot a movie like that, there are a lot of choices to make and certainly some of it will end up on the DVD."
Expect an extended version with added scenes, he said.
Arad is forming his own production company but will continue to serve as a creative advisor to Marvel through the rest of this year. That means he'll be involved in Iron Man, Hulk 2 and Spider-Man 3.
Michael Helfant, President and COO of Marvel Studios, and Kevin Feige, Marvel Studio's President of Production, will lead Marvel Studios, according to the comics publisher.
Meanwhile, X-Men: The Last Stand has taken in $130.2 million so far domestically and a total of $214.8 million worldwide in just five days, according to Box Office Mojo. The only other films with better five-day totals were "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" ($172.8 million), Spider-Man 2 ($152.4 million), "The Matrix Reloaded" ($139.4 million) and Spider-Man ($135.8 million), the site says.