Simon Kinberg on X-MEN: APOCALYPSE and GAMBIT
During an interview with Latino Review, X-Men screenwriter Simon Kinberg talked a little bit about what is coming for X-Men: Apocalypse, including some details about the Four Horsemen, as well as the status of Channing Tatum's Gambit.
The writer was asked if he sees the X-Men franchise as being a single narrative like Marvel Studios' different phases, and this was how he answered:
"We think about these X-Men movies as spread over – X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past to Apocalypse was imagined as a trilogy for us. It’s the Origin stories in some ways of Charles, Raven, Hank and Eric and we will be settling things up in Apocalypse that will be generating new stories. We look at it globally as to where to mutants fit into the world. That’s why we jump from the 60’s to the 70’s and now the 80’s. We really want to be able to track the progression of the world and where do mutants fit in that world. It’s a pretty radical thing to do in any movie but certainly in a superhero franchise where you are jumping a decade each time you make a film. The reason that it is globally is that we wanted to be able to track the impact of mutants and the emergence of mutants into the world. Personally, we are very clear from the beginning as to how Charles, Eric and Raven especially dovetail, duck and weave in and out of each others lives. We were building, in some ways, a trilogy that is a story of three people; a brother, a little sister and another man who comes, in some ways, as a brother and how that sister leaves with the new brother. The war for that [sister's] soul between these two men defines First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse . That’s a larger story we are telling even though each of those films is its own coherent and complete film. You can look at the arc of those three characters almost like a television show arcing over three complete episodes."
Kinberg goes on to say that it will "take advantage of the historical context of the 80s." They are covering a lot of historical ground here with these movies. It will be interesting to see what aspects of history they pull from that era to implement into the story they are going to tell. He was then asked about Tatum playing Gambit and if he'll be introduced in a team movie before getting his own solo movie or vice versa.
"I genuinely don’t know the answer to that question. It’s something we are all talking about whether it would be good for Gambit to be in a mainline X-Men movie or he would be in his own stand-alone movie potentially one day to be able to be in another X-Men movie after his Gambit movie introduces him. I really don’t know the answer. I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule which way is better. I think both ways have worked and I think actually the real question will be is there a role that is strong and specific enough for Gambit in a mainline X-Men movie whether it be Apocalypse or [a] future X-Men movie that would be the right way to introduce the character. You don’t want to stick characters in these movies and manufacture something for them to do. You want the movie to tell you that it needs another character or ideally it needs this specific character."
As for the Four Horsemen in X-Men: Apocalypse, he was coaxed into giving a little bit of info saying:
"I will tell you this and obviously there are a lot of different versions of the [Horsemen] over the books, and this will not reveal any of the identities so I apologize in advance. I will let you know that our choosing of the [Horsemen] was something that we, Bryan and myself took very, very seriously and did only after an exhaustive review of all the different [Horsemen], both in the comics and the cartoons who have at one point or another fallen under Apocalypse."
We've still got a ways to go before we see anything from this movie. But it sounds like they know what they want it to be, and I'm sure it will be awesome.