14 DAY TRIAL // “X-Men: Apocalypse,” the third installment in the rebooted “X-Men” franchise, will be out in 2016, but if you were hoping for a redo of the amazing reunion between the members of the old cast, who, thanks to a time travel plotline, were able to appear alongside their characters’ younger versions, you’re in for a disappointment.
Whereas “X-Men: Days of Future Past” featured both young and older versions of the same characters, which meant that Sir Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen reprised their Professor X and Magneto roles (the young versions are played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender), Stewart says he and his good friend (in real life) won’t return for next year’s installment.
“I was learning quite a lot more about it last night, and it is going to be looking very much at the earlier lives of all our characters,” he tells Larry King in a new interview cited by Yahoo! Movies. “And so I don’t think we’ll be making an appearance.”
Then again, that shouldn’t really come as a surprise to fans of the franchise. Even before “Days of Future Past” came out, Simon Kinberg, one of the writers working on the script for “Apocalypse,” told fans at a comic book convention that this third installment would take place before the events of the original “X-Men” franchise and shortly after those in the rebooted “X-Men: First Class.”
In other words, consider “Days of Future Past,” with all its amazing cameos, a treat for the fans, one that will probably not happen again too soon. Still, we know that Stewart is open to cameos, so he alone might pop up again, but after “Apocalypse.”