JAMES MCAVOY AND PATRICK STEWART WILL NOT HAVE SCENES TOGETHER

“It’ll be cool, but I don’t think [Patrick Stewart and I] get any scenes together, sadly. I don’t think there’s any future self talking to past self.”

Although he’s doesn’t sound 100% positive, it’s more than likely he’s right about that. 

via Collider.

BRYAN SINGER INTERVIEW 

Part of the interview was for ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’, then the second half of the interview delves into Days of Future Past: 

I wanted to ask you a little bit about the X-Men sequel. Do you have your shooting dates yet?

SINGER: Yeah, I start shooting April 15th in Montreal.

And how long are you going to be up there for?

SINGER: Probably until October.

That’s a healthy shoot.

SINGER: It’s a big movie. It’ll be the biggest movie I’ve ever made.

I’ve been so impressed that you’ve been able to put together this incredible cast for the sequel. How difficult was it for you to get all these people involved?

SINGER: I got the impression that everyone was kind of excited to come back. The actors fromX-Men: First Class are contracted to, but the ones I’ve spoken to are very enthusiastic. Jen’s very excited, I’m with Nick these past few days and he’s excited, and Hugh, Ian, Patrick, Anna—they remember we felt very good about those first two X-Men films back then. I think there’s a good feeling about all of us working together again, and I’m very excited to work with the new cast members as a director as opposed to just a producer.

Are you shooting the film in 3D and might you be using high frame rate?

SINGER: I don’t think the high frame rate would make sense for this movie, but I will be shooting native 3D, yeah.

Are you going to use the same camera package, are you using Red Epic?

SINGER: I’m not sure yet, I haven’t made that decision yet. I’m looking at a few systems, so we’ll see.

I’m such a huge fan of the John Byrne/Chris Claremont comics, I think that it’s probably, if not the best, one of the best of the X-Men storylines. How challenging has it been for you guys to adapt what fans love into a successful movie?

SINGER: Well you have to capture the essence of those stories, and if you try to do every single detail that’s in this story, that can be too much for a movie. But if you can grab the essence of that story and those characters, and then realize it’s a movie it’s not a comic book so there are certain parameters that are different, it’ll still be satisfying to fans and non-fans.

One of the things that excites me about you taking on X-Men again is the advancement in technology. What technological advancements in the past few years might you be able to apply to future films like X-Men or another thing in the future?

SINGER: Well I love the motion capture technology, that’s exciting for certain things. But just qualitatively, you can do more qualitatively. I was re-watching the X-Men films and I realized how poor the quality of Mystique’s transformation was, for instance, in those early films. It’s almost like the blue animation was just resting on top of her skin and there was no incorporation with the actual flesh. It looked a lot worse than I remembered. So just stuff like that, just better quality visual effects.

I’ve seen on Twitter that you’ve been working on the script. Are you pretty close to having a locked screenplay?

SINGER: There’s no such thing as a locked screenplay [laughs]. Maybe with Aaron Sorkin, but it’s really an ever-evolving process. The actors haven’t had a draft yet so I’m trying to get a draft to them soon, and I just want to do one more pass with Simon [Kinberg] before I give them a draft and then keep working from there. That’s how you get double golden rod, triple salmon colored pages. You’re always just coming up with stuff.

When we left at the end of First Class it was in the late 60s, and rumors have been online that the sequel takes place in the 70s. Are those rumors true and have you guys figured out when it takes place?

SINGER: Yeah, we have, and part of it takes place in the 1970s. And Richard Nixon’s in it, that’ll be an interesting casting choice. I can tell you that, that’s a little confirmation I guess.

How far into the “future” are you planning on going? Is that something that you’re really looking forward to exploring?

SINGER: Yeah, and there’ll also be some more science-fiction-type aspects to the story and, without giving it away, some technology that we haven’t seen yet in the X-Men universe.

What was it like for you getting the phone call from Fox saying, “Hey, would you consider directing this thing?”

SINGER: Well, it was very weird. I was on a boat off the coast of Hawaii on a working vacation, I was with John Orloff, the screenwriter of the Battlestar Galactica movie which I’ve had to step away from at the moment, obviously for this, and I was working with him and Jason Taylor who runs my company. We were on a boat and we were doing some work but also relaxing a bit and I had had a drink, so I was a little relaxed, and I didn’t even realize I had phone service so I took the phone out of my pocket and it was a call from Emma Watts at the studio. She just said, “Matthew’s not doing the movie, would you like to direct it?” I wasn’t sure that was actually the case, I thought maybe it was a momentary issue they were having.

I didn’t know what to think, and then Simon called me up to prepare me to get the draft, because I needed to get the most recent draft at that point to make that decision. And then Matthew called me the next day and that’s when I realized, and I said, “Are you sure?” and he was like, “Yeah I’m sure,” and he explained his reasons and I thought, “Okay, well I need to get into this.” So it was a little like, “Oh, okay well now I know what the next year will be.” Jason Taylor, the head of my company, looked across the table at me on the boat and he just saw my facial expression, because suddenly when you know that your whole next two years are going to change, it does cause a reaction.

Read the full interview at Collider.

HALLE BERRY STILL NOT CONFIRMED FOR RETURN TO X-MEN, BUT… 

According to Shadow and Act, “she did confirm to me that she would be returning in the role. Most likely. Practically 90% sure. And she nodded a lot too. I can’t say, and neither could she say that it’s definitely a done deal, and that the contracts have all been signed, with all the “i”s dotted and the “t”s crossed.

Plus, there are “a few details that are still being negotiated which she couldn’t get into. But since she did tell me that the film starts shooting in April, it’s highly unlikely that talks are going to suddenly and horribly fall apart at this point, and the producers have to scramble to find a replacement at the very last minute.”

via ComingSoon.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE WILL WEAR A BODY SUIT THIS TIME AROUND

Either I didn’t realize or I don’t remember that (now Academy Award Winner) Jennifer Lawrence had problems with the paint they used to color her Mystique.  Thus changing from all-over paint to a full body suit is probably more than just a nice change of pace, as she told E!.  

“I’m so excited because I’m going to wear a body suit.  It will be from neck down so it will cut out time and the blisters.”

She’s also scheduled to start filming sometime in May:

“May-ish. I haven’t read the script yet. I haven’t had 30 minutes. They literally gave me the script and I was like, ‘I can’t read this until Monday.'”

This is definitely a bit of a cry from the January start date the people at Marvel stated (this caused a bit of a quandry for the people at Lionsgate to get the sequel to The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, filmed before she had to report to the X-Men set.  This consequently lost them their planned director, Gary Ross, as he did not feel he could produce a quality film with so little time, and then Francis Lawrence took the job soon thereafter.  Jennifer recently went back to Hawaii for some reshoots for the film.)  

via ComingSoon.