Ask a longtime reader of Uncanny X-men what the most memorable storyline was and you'll probably hear only a few titles mentioned: The Dark Phoenix Saga; maybe Age of Apocalypse; but you'll definitely get Days of Future Past. Why was it such a big deal? Well, much like Age of Apocalypse, it presented a world in which the X-men have utterly failed in their mission, and showed the dire ramifications of that failure. It was written back in 1981 by legendary scribe, Chris Claremont, featuring gorgeous John Byrne art, and Marvel Comics can't help trying to replicate that story every few years or so, usually with terrible results.
Why am I bringing it up now? Aint it Cool News has learned that 20th Century Fox have registered the title 'Days of Future Past' with the MPAA Title Registration Bureau. Basically that means they want to keep that title locked down with plans of doing something with it, like making a movie. Could this be the sequel to X-men: First Class, which just recently locked down a release date in July 2014? Or...and this is more intriguing, is it the long rumored fourth traditional X-men movie?
Which makes more sense? Well, Days of Future Past takes place mostly in a dystopian future Earth where the gigantic robotic Sentinels rule. Basically, the X-men failed to prevent Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly, which leads to a mutant registration act and ultimately internment camps. Nearly all of the X-men are dead or have vanished. A future version of Kitty Pryde(Ellen Page played her in X-men: The Last Stand) comes back to the present to warn the present day X-men so they can help prevent the Senator's death.
On the surface, it seems like a story best suited to the grown up X-men, as many of the central players have already been introduced. Wolverine figures largely in the story, and Mystique is a more hardened killer at that point in her life than she is in X-men: First Class. Because it also involves alternate timelines, it could be used as a way of ignoring the previous, Brett Ratner-directed X-men movie altogether, which probably won't piss too many people off. It's a dark story, and doesn't really fit the lighter tone Matthew Vaughn established in X-men: First Class. A little over a year ago, producer Lauren Schuler Donner told us that X-men's 4 & 5 were in development, so we know something is cooking. My personal hope is that they deal with the mess Ratner helped create, and use Days of Future Past to help fix the lingering problems.
The best thing X-men: First Class had going for it was the sort of kitschy, Golden Age, spy movie tone, and Days of Future Past definitely doesn't fit with that unless they change it significantly.
By the way, big props to JimSmash for that slick X-men image we used as the graphic. Check out his site when you get a chance.
