In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Singer returns to the director's chair to expand upon his vision for the X-Men universe. It's a huge and provocative story propelled by richly conceived characters. Producer Hutch Parker believes it is "a combination of Bryan's love, attention and respect for these characters" that makes the director's X-Men films so compelling. Singer first gained widespread attention in 1995 with the mystery-thriller The Usual Suspects and has consistently entertained audiences by directing films that can be characterised by his bold visual style and richly drawn characters.
Singer has reinvented the comic book genre as we've come to know it. With the debut of the hugely successful X-Men in the summer of 2000, Singer established nothing less than a new creative aesthetic in his motion picture adaptation of the beloved comic's stories and characters. That film was followed by Singer's even more successful X2 in 2003.
While producing 2011's X-Men: First Class, Simon Kinberg began conceptualising the storyline for the next X-Men feature with filmmaker Matthew Vaughn; they kept gravitating towards a story that juxtaposed two generations of X-Men.
They were inspired by the original Days of Future Past comic written by Chris Claremont, who appears in a cameo role in the film. "I think it makes perfect sense to have the past be set in the early 1970s when the world was undergoing tremendous change and turmoil," said the comic's legend. "It certainly made chronological sense after First Class, which was set in the 1960s."
For Claremont, the most important element of storytelling is taking the readers by surprise. He feels Days of Future Past is a fantastic story to bring to the screen. "It's one of the most iconic stories in the canon," said Claremont. "That combined with Bryan Singer's vision and a cast of breathtaking variety and depth is very cool."
Time travel is a key component of both the comic and the new film, though Singer said X-Men: Days of Future Past has an unconventional take on it. "The difference is that we're not sending someone back in time, physically," he explained. "Instead, we're sending a character's consciousness into his younger self. For the period that Logan is in the past, both past and future can co-exist. So I can have parallel action happening in both time periods.
"There's even a theory in quantum physics that describes that phenomenon," he continued. "It's called the 'superposition,' which claims that if we have not yet observed the outcome of an event, then the event hasn't truly happened. When the observer in our story, Wolverine, returns from the past, that collapses the superposition, meaning that everything he's changed in the past will then take hold in the future."
While Singer was exploring the logic and physics of time travel, Kinberg was studying time travel literature and movies while working on the script. "What is unique about Days of Future Past is the inter-cuts and interactions between past and future," Kinberg agrees. "One of the challenges of the project was not only keeping the logic intact, but having the emotion feel continuous. The continuity of a young character and an older version of the same character created a new set of criteria. Keeping the emotional logical, not just the rational logical, was as challenging as the physics and psychology of time travel."
Kinberg embraced the opportunity to work with Singer on a picture that combined the cast from the original film trilogy and the team from X-Men: First Class. "These films are about being an outsider and finding a surrogate family when your own family won't accept you, and that all resonates with Bryan," said Kinberg.
Singer reunites with the cast of the original X-Men films, as well as the young cast of First Class, on which he wrote the story and served as a producer. From the original trilogy, X-Men: Days of Future Past toplines Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Halle Berry; and from First Class, it stars Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.
"It was a thrill to cast these people, both in the original X-Men films and also in First Class," Singer noted, "and at that time, several of them had little to no experience with films of this scope. Hugh came from a musical theatre background; Jennifer had done only small independent films like Winter's Bone. Over the years their careers have evolved, gained momentum and garnered tremendous recognition. The coming together of the original family and the new one has been exciting for us all.
"The biggest reason I wanted to return to the X-Men," Singer confirmed, "is not just the enormous cast and the story's scope, but also the way it touches on things that haven't been experienced in X-Men films to this point, like time travel, that have blossomed in the comic books for many years. I think with each movie you need to do something new, and I can guarantee there's a lot of new stuff in Days of Future Past."
Hugh Jackman is the tie that binds the days of future and past. Jackman has played the character of Wolverine seven times over 14 years, which he describes as an "incredible and rare gift". It is the character that has defined his career, but has never limited him as an actor. Jackman knows Wolverine better than anyone, and he describes Logan's return to the X-Men universe as a "rebirth".
"Logan sees himself, for the first time in a long while, as part of the X-Men team," Jackman continued. "He has come to terms with the fact that his anger is his greatest weapon. He is a warrior at peace with himself now. Being the only mutant with the capacity to heal himself, Logan volunteers to travel back in time to prevent the mutant apocalypse that the X-Men of the future are facing."
Wolverine's mutant abilities make him the only member of the X-Men capable of making the journey. Singer explains: "Going back that far in time would rip apart the mind of anyone else. There's only one person who has the regenerative capabilities to survive the experience, and that's Wolverine. Since he doesn't age, when Wolverine's mind travels back to his younger self, Hugh was able to play both versions of the character. So that was a great opportunity for me and for Hugh."
Jackman was grateful for the opportunity to reunite with Berry, McKellen, and Stewart, with whom he's remained friends since their coming together in the first X-Men film, as well as with Singer, whom Jackman credits for his breakthrough in Hollywood films. Working with the young cast was also a treat. During one particularly telling moment, Jackman was walking down the Blue Hallway set with Nicholas Hoult, who said: "I remember I was about eight years old when I saw X-Men." That moment made Jackman realise how iconic the X-Men universe has become.
X-Men: Days of Future Past is the biggest X-Men film to date, a validation of the success of the franchise, but more importantly a culmination of tremendous creative energies from its cast and filmmakers. It is a story that reaches across all boundaries to all audiences.
At last year's Comic-Con convention when almost the entire cast stood on stage in front of their fans, the roar of applause was deafening. The emotion was overwhelming.
Singer recognises that kind of emotion. "If I had been at Comic-Con 25 years ago and Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia walked across the stage I would have freaked out, too!" he said. For Singer, the X-Men stories are "modern-day mythologies. I feel extremely at home with this universe. I love being in it, exploring it and having a lot of fun with it." His ability to articulate these stories as a filmmaker is unparalleled. Which means that for the X-Men, there is hope for a bright future
