Chris Claremont on Bryan Singer's X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
The new X-Men movie that Bryan Singer is developing, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is based on the comic book work of writer Chris Claremont. In a recent interview with Newsarama, Claremont discussed his thoughts on the upcoming adaptation of X-Men: Days of Future saying,
The challenge, I would think, for Bryan is that the heart of the original story is not the fight with the Brotherhood back in the present day. The challenge, the story, is actually what happens in the future. Getting them to the point where you can send Kitty back, and seeing the consequences of what will happen if they fail, and not knowing at the end how it's going to turn out. You think it's going to be a happy ending, but you're not sure, because pretty much everybody dies — in the comic, anyway. You can't not be invested. That's pretty much most of my working life, dancing around or through the X-Men as a concept.
You could look at it as time travel, or you could look at it as pan-dimension. It's all a matter of how you want to define it, and I'm sure they've got some brainiacs out on the left coast earning a small research stipend figuring out a plausible way of making it fly. That's the fun and games of Hollywood. How the hell they're going to fit it into 120 minutes, I have no sodding idea. I'd be looking on this as your basic 1974 film with an intermission.In movies it's a one-shot item too often. If we're doing Days of Future Past, we need Ororo, we need Logan. OK, we've got Hugh Jackman, but that means we've got to get Halle Berry. I'm sure some accountant at Fox is going, 'Huh? 'We're talking how much?' On the other hand, you never know when a major talent is willing to do a Scarlett Johansson, and come in perhaps at scale, just for the fun of it.
The really nice thing with Future Past is that you actually have a superhero film — much to everyone's surprise, I will hope — that is about something. It's about racism, I hope. It's about resisting oppression. It's about fighting for freedom and the cost of fighting for freedom. I will be fascinated to see how they weave the two together.
It's not known how faithful to the comic the movie will be, but I imagine Singer is going to give fans the best possible adaptation. The fact that several of the past X-Men cast members will be returning should tell us that that we are going to get a decently faithful adaptation.
Head on over to Newsarama to read more of the interview. What do you think of Claremont's thoughts on the film?