Among the things we know about the upcoming “X-Men: Apocalypse”, it’s been (almost) confirmed that Ian McKellen would be coming back to reprise his role as Magneto. The news was received very positively by fans of the series, although many online discussions revolved around one big question: why are the producers bringing back the character?
It’s not very likely we’ll get an official answer soon anyway, as Fox haven’t confirmed the claims of the actor coming back yet, but we did get a confirmation from Patrick Steward, who sounded insistent on what he was saying, so he seems to know what’s going on behind the scenes at the moment.
Considering the timeline of “X-Men: Apocalypse”, there could be many implications for the role of Magneto in the story. “Days of Future Past” brought time travel into the mix, which could further make the story complicated regarding Magneto’s involvement in it, and some have speculated that Magneto will be one of the last mutants going up against En Sabah Nur in the future timeline of the film.
The timeline of “Age of Apocalypse” has been considered as a possibility as well, after it was spawned by Legion, the son of Professor X, when he tried to kill Magneto through the use of time travel, resulting in the death of Xavier instead of that. This was actually what led to the creation of the X-Men in that timeline, although they were not successful in stopping Apocalypse from rising to power.
One thing that some have been skeptical about is the possibility of seeing the film steering towards the area of “Legion Quest”, although it’s still not out of the question that the story could be brought in and adapted a little bit to make it work.
Other than Ian McKellen, actors that we know will be making an appearance in the new film include James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. There have been other, unconfirmed reports about even more actors, and there are plenty of rumors about who we might see in the new film, but so far there have been few official confirmations, and the studio seems pretty tight-lipped about their new production.
If all goes as planned, the film should be ready by May 27 next year, and will be followed by the third installment in the “Wolverine” franchise, which will start production shortly after and will then be released on March 3, 2017. Of course, those release dates are quite far in the future, and a lot could happen until then, so it’s not known if the producers will actually manage to keep the dates for both films or if we’ll see a delay.