Until now, only Hugh Jackman’s involvement in the threequel was certain

May 27, 2014 12:33 GMT  ·  By

Now, this is a very interesting development. While “X-Men: Days of Future Past” continues to make a killing at the box office (it was released in most territories last Friday, May 23), 20th Century Fox is already subtly drumming up interest in the follow-up, the third installment in the rebooted franchise, which will be called “X-Men: Apocalypse.”

It’s primarily doing so through writer Simon Kinberg who, in a new interview with The Daily Beast, confirms something he had refused to confirm in older interviews, namely that members of the original cast will also be featured in “Apocalypse.”

If you’re new to the franchise, here’s how this goes: all X-Men movies before “First Class,” which came out in 2011, starred Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and Hugh Jackman as Professor Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Wolverine, respectively.

With “First Class,” the franchise was rebooted by bringing the story into the past, into a time when it all started, when the Professor and Magneto were good friends and explaining how their falling apart led to the creation of two opposing factions of Mutants.

Wolverine makes only a cameo (and he’s not any younger, so he’s still played by Jackman), while the roles of Charles and Magneto go to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. We also have Jennifer Lawrence as a young Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as the young Beast.

In the most recent installment, “Days of Future Past,” the action shifts between past and future, so we actually get to see all these amazing actors star together as the younger and older versions of the beloved Mutants.

Until now, it was widely assumed that this was a one-time occurrence and that Stewart and McKellan were done with the franchise. After all, how much time-traveling can these Mutants stand?

Kinsberg played into the rumors, even saying in an older interview that he only expected McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, and Hoult to return. Since he’s the one writing the script, it was assumed that he already had an idea of the plot for “Apocalypse,” so he was talking from a place of experience.

It turns out that he might have been gagged into not dishing out too many details, because here’s what he had to say on the topic now: “[‘Apocalypse’] will focus primarily on the First Class cast, but it will certainly have some of the original cast involved, too.”

In other words, it’s not unreasonable to hope for a cameo from the beloved duo Stewart – McKellan, aside from appearances by Jackman, which have long been confirmed.

As to how said cameos might be tied up into the story, that’s anyone’s guess right now. If you saw “Days of Future Past,” you probably know that there’s an Easter Egg after the end-credits, which shows the villain and his clique from the upcoming film. His name is Apocalypse and his posse goes by the name of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Subtlety is not their strong suit, obviously.

The Easter Egg doesn’t include a single hint as to whether the film will have any time-traveling, which would allow the Stewart and McKellan cameos to happen.