X-Men writer and producer Simon Kinberg has sure been busy these past few weeks, taking over from Bryan Singer on the promotional trail for the latest instalment in the mutant franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past [read our reviews here and here]. Just a couple of days ago, he spoke about bringing Apocalypse to the screen for the next sequel X-Men: Apocalypse, and now he’s offered up a few more thoughts, describing the 2016 release as a “Roland Emmerich-style disaster movie” (which may not be the best choice of words when it comes to building anticipation for a film, it has to be said)…
“The thing that we’ve spent the most time talking about is not just the visual execution of the character, which is its own challenge – creating a character that’s the most powerful I think of any mutant villain that we’ve seen in the X-Men movies so far. More powerful than Magneto. The kind of scope and scale we’re talking about is like disaster movie, extinction level event. Sort of Roland Emmerich-style moviemaking, which you’ve never seen in an X-Men movie, or any superhero movie, which I think is exciting… But we’ve also been talking about how to give [Apocalypse] a real emotional and philosophical underpinning. So he’s not just somebody who’s out there destroying the world because he can. What he’s doing is – in his mind – justified and validated by a real compelling, coherent philosophy. He tries to proselytise and convert people – maybe some of our most familiar characters – to come to his cause.”
X-Men: Apocalypse is set for release on May 27th, 2016, with a cast that so far includes James McAvoy (Professor Xavier), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Evan Peters (Quicksilver) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), while Channing Tatum (22 Jump Street) is expected to sign on as Gambit.
Originally published May 26, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
