Bryan Singer's been busy getting the preparations in place for X-men: Days of Future Past, even occasionally tweeting updates from the set, but it doesn't sound like they're totally ready for action. While he's been teasing the possibility of a fully CGI mutant, he sounds unsure about the return of two popular live-action characters from the original trilogy: Nightcrawler and Storm. In fact, it sounds like the current script is unfinished to the point where the team roster isn't completely confirmed.
He's already got a lot of characters to deal with. The bulk of the cast from X-men: First Class will be returning, along with a large number from the original X-men trilogy. But we've heard next to nothing about Halle Berry returning as Storm. While talking to MTV, Singer didn't sound too confident....
Singer: "I can’t say. I don’t know yet. And it’s not necessarily a deal making aspect at all. I want to make sure it’ll make sense. But I love working with her."
And then while speaking to HuffPo, he said much the same thing in regards to Alan Cumming coming back as the teleporting "elf", Nightcrawler...
Singer: "I don't want to ... sometimes you don't want to say "yes" or "no" to something that may not be a "yes" or a "no," or anything. I haven't decided yet, a few things. I'm still, you know -- there are certain aspects of the script that I'm still toying with."
Plenty of waffling going on there. What it sounds like is that Singer is trying to figure out if either character NEEDS to be a part of his story, which is complicated enough dealing with the past, present, and far-flung future. Indeed, making sure he can manage the large cast by giving them a purpose is Singer's top priority.....
Singer: "I don't want to say [who the protagonists are] yet, or talk about that yet, but I will say that every character has a very important function in the story. The story is designed and catered to the combined cast. It's not just throwing in people to occupy the screen, occupy the billboards. The story 'Days of Future Past,' and our version of 'Days of Future Past' is geared very much toward the mass cast and all their relationships and all their foibles and their achievements."
My suspicion is that maybe Nightcrawler is the CGI character, and he just doesn't want to spoil it. Does that sound too far-fetched? Storm is far more important to the team as a whole, but Berry was terrible in the role and I'm not sure it'd be worth it to bring her back.
X-men: Days of Future Past opens on July 18th 2014.
