d6999550a0d3646fe9a5cb003953c2a5Steering Fox’s biggest superhero franchise deeper into its own grand, post-Avengers shared-universe thing, Bryan Singer has let the Apocalypse cat out of the bag. The director will not only follow up upcoming Days Of Future Past –which mixes both franchise timelines in bold fashion– with another consecutive X-film, he’ll do so with a film that only ups the time traveling, world-threatening stakes.

It started with a tweet…

 

That bomb –which tells us that not only is Singer directing, the studio is already aiming at a date, and they’re tackling one of the biggest, meanest X-villains– was quickly followed by more official info from Vulture. They say the film will be direct, immediate sequel focusing on the First Class cast. Other outlets have confirmed that several original timeline cast members in Days Of Future Past will return again though. If you want to go deeper, Bleeding Cool was actually pointing towards Apocalypse becoming the villain of the franchise many months ago, while First Showing claimed to be able to describe the exact scene that will set him up. However, their scene description reads… just terribly, and Bryan Singer has fortunately tweeted the following…

 

…which is clearly a tacit debunking of the FS description, which has Apocalypse crashing from the sky and being described as “an alien form.”

c8694f8cbb3c25c1f28aa29cb9f1919a-1What do you want to see from a big screen story centered around Apocalypse- the ancient Egyptian-born God-mutant with almost unlimited power, an insanely complex timeline filled with time-travel, and a hunger to see the world rid of all weak creatures?

Also, I find it interesting that Fox with X-Men, Marvel with Guardians (and Avengers 2?), and WB with that old JLA script are or have been moving towards their respective universe’s oversize man-God villains that want nothing except to destroy everything, totally. Apocalypse, Thanos, and Darkseid are all either coming or have appeared in legitimate studio scripts. Hell, if you really want to, you can throw Hardy’s Bane in there too, with Nolan choosing to go with a bald, brawny (if not quite godly) villain that effectively obliterated the Dark Knight’s entire world in his own franchise as well… So in 5 years or so when all these villains have had their shot at universal annihilation, what do superhero films do then?

Is it merely a function of comic book universes getting deeper on the big screen, thus allowing them to tackle these deeper, bigger-scale villains? Is it the ultimately conclusion of the streak of quiet nihilism that runs through so much blockbuster storytelling? Is it the result of writers and filmmakers having to push closer and closer to the end of literally everything nuclear options to up the stakes on these CGI-filled action spectacles? I’m just spitballing here.

godvillains