In an interview with Total Film, Singer says screenwriters Michael Dougherty, Simon Kinberg, and Dan Harris are "breaking the story" now, which will be set in a different time period than X-men: First Class and 'Future Past'....
Singer: “We’re going to deal with the notion of ancient mutants – the fact they were born and existed thousands of years ago. But it’ll be a contemporary movie – well, it’ll take place in the ’80s… The ’80s is a period now – it’s hard for me to believe that!”
He also says the film will be much bigger in scope and the level of super-powered destruction....
Singer: “Apocalypse will have more of the mass destruction that X-Men films, to date, have not relied upon. There’s definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle… I don’t want to get too specific, but we’ll introduce familiar characters in a younger time. That’ll be fun to show the audience. I call these movies in-between-quels. It’s a mind-fuck sometimes in terms of where things fall in the timeline!”
"Younger characters in a younger time"? Could he be talking about reintroducing younger versions of Cyclops and Jean Grey? Sounds like he's setting up for exactly that....
Singer: “Yeah, there actually are [more stories I want to tell]. It all stems back to when I did [the first] X-Men. You always want to know where a character’s going to go, what their future’s going be like. You can always sequelise. But on that film I also had actors asking ‘Who am I? Where did my character come from?’ So as a director you always need a backstory to give your actors. It may not be the right backstory, but it’s one you can give the actor to help them understand their character. These prequels are really exciting for me because they give me a chance to explore ideas I came up with more than a decade ago.”
The central figure in 'Future Past', and nearly all of the X-men movies, is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. We know that Mangold is coming back to write and direct Logan's next adventure, although Jackman has been wobbly about returning. He's always non-committal until a script is done. Anyway, a Twitter user asked Mangold when The Wolverine sequel would begin filming, and the director responded with...
@R__E__D_R__U__M @20centuryfox @ShuDonner We are figuring it all out. At the moment, I'm shooting The next #Wolverine after #XmenApocalypse.
— Mangold (@mang0ld) March 15, 2014
That means we won't see The Wolverine 2 until 2017 at the earliest, and by then Jackman will be 48 years old. He's still quite the physical speciman and could probably play Logan until he's 60, it's just a matter of desire.....and how much money 20th Century Fox offers.
