Recently, Sir Patrick Stewart announced that neither he nor Sir Ian McKellen would be reprising their roles for next year’s X-Men: Apocalypse, but now it seems that he was only half right. In a new interview, the thespian let slip that McKellen will in fact be returning for more metal-bending action, while he himself may be teaming up with Hugh Jackman for Wolverine 3, which is slated for release in March 2017.
In between raving about Portland, Oregon and his upcoming film Match, Stewart spoke a bit about the upcoming X-Men movies when asked if he’d be returning for Apocalypse. He stated that it’s “very unlikely” that he’ll be in the next film, but that McKellen is “certainly going to be in it.” As for his future role in the franchise, he said the following:
“What I’m very excited about is that we have been talking about a Wolverine movie, which would team Hugh Jackman and myself together. Wolverine and Professor Xavier. That would be a very different sort of X-Men from the four movies that I’ve already done.”
The notion of an Xavier/Wolverine team-up film raises quite a few questions about the X-Men franchise. As great as it would be to see Stewart and Jackman on screen together once more, I wonder what their reunion would mean for the newly-established timeline that was put in place at the end of last year’s Days of Future Past.
Apocalypse takes place in the 1980s, but is set to close out the prequel trilogy that began with First Class in 2011. When that film concludes, will we jump forward in time to the present day and follow the contemporary X-Men team once more? If so, what does that mean for newly-cast actors like Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner and Alexandra Shipp, who are playing younger versions of core X-Men members Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm?
It’s certainly possible for the X-Men franchise to tell past and present stories concurrently, but are audiences ready to handle a cinematic universe that sprawls several decades and jumps between them with each passing installment at will? It’s an ambitious plan to say the least, but it also might not be the plan at all, so we’ll just have to wait and see what X-Men: Apocalypse brings to the series when it hits theaters on May 27th, 2016.