Last week at Comic-Con the crowd was treated to the debut footage from Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse, a sequel to last year's time-hopping X-Men: Days of Future Past. While that footage has yet to be released in any official capacity (leaks are out there, sadly), EW is offering a small taste in some new photos that reveal Oscar Isaac as the titular villain, Olivia Munn as Psylocke, and more.
So how does one go about following-up on the prior film which basically rebooted the franchise? Go bigger, and Apocalypse is exactly the kind of villain perfectly suited for that. The film takes place ten years later in 1983 and the X-Men have gone their separate ways. Xavier (James McAvoy) is helping young mutants (including Jean Grey, played by Sophie Turner), Mystique, now going by Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) is out rescuing enslaved mutants, while Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has moved on to live a quiet life. It's at that point the seemingly-immortal Apocalype finds and recruits him to join his Four Horsemen. Others who comprise the group are Psylocke, Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Angel (Ben Hardy), who each have interesting and unexpected origins. Angel was discovered fighting in a fight club, for instance.
The emergence of younger versions of established X-Men is a concerted effort to focus on newer characters to carry the franchise, since it's unclear what the future holds for big names like McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult.
“This is kind of the introduction to them,” says director Bryan Singer, returning for his fourth X-Men movie. “At the same time, it has concluding aspects of those previous stories.”
With the arrival of these images expect that Comic-Con trailer to be officially online soon. X-Men: Apocalypse opens May 27th 2016.
