Director Bryan
Singer returns to the X-Men franchise, and blends the original cast with the
First Class crew for an audacious, time travelling adventure in “X-Men: Days of
Future Past” (3D) that will open in Philippine cinemas on May 21 nationwide.
For years, the
X-Men have faced many threats from within and without their ranks, but in “Days
of Future Past,” they’re dealing with one of the worst. The films have a
history of mankind misunderstanding mutants, but in the upcoming film,
scientist Bolivar Trask (played by Peter Dinklage) begins to rally the world
against our heroes, and creates the monstrous, massive Sentinel robots to help
tackle what he perceives as the mutant problem.
With Bryan Singer
back at the helm, the movie continues his approach of grounded, understandable
villains, whose issues come from a place of fear and arrogance. To portray
Trask, he turned to respected actor Peter Dinklage, who has found fame on the
worldwide hit TV’s “Game of Thrones” playing Tyrion Lannister, a man for whom
life is an endless series of shades of grey. Singer figured Dinklage was the
man to bring Trask – a well-known character from the comic books – to life on
screen, and developed a nuanced role for him.
Dinklage’s other notable movies include “The Station Agent,” “Death at a Funeral,” “Elf” and lent his
vocal talent in the hit animation franchise films “Ice Age” as the voice of
Gruff and “Chronicles of Narnia” as the voice of Trumpkin.
“Days Of Future
Past” not only represent the first time that the “classic” X-Men actors
including Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Ellen Page
and more have shared the marquee with the First Class characters introduced in
2011, but the return of Singer to the franchise he helped launch. He’s back behind
the camera for the adaptation of one of the best-loved X-Men stories, which
found our heroes fighting for survival in a dark future where the hulking,
robotic Sentinels created by Bolivar Trask have been slowly wiping them out. In
a desperate final gambit, the mutants look to time travel to help their younger
selves stop this awful timeline from coming to pass. And, thanks to his innate
healing abilities, Wolverine (Jackman) is the one chosen to endure the strain
of travelling back in time.
Based on Chris
Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin’s “Days Of Future Past” storyline from
the “Uncanny X-Men” comic title, scribe Simon Kinberg adapted it into the movie
which allows him and Singer to draw on their shared love of time travel films.
Once Kinberg and Singer seized on the Future Past plot as a jumping-off point,
the possibilities were endless. “Bryan and I spent months revising the script
together,” Kinberg recalls.
The X-Men throng
needs to be all ready for this time, they are facing their toughest challenge
yet. “Game Of Thrones” fan favourite
Peter Dinklage was hired to play a very different version of Bolivar Trask, a
genius who views mutants as a mortal threat to mankind and decides to create
the menacing, technologically advanced Sentinel robots to fight them. Singer
chose Dinklage for several reasons. “I was very familiar with him and I'm a fan
of his. He first and foremost, carries the screen, and there's not a second
that you take him for granted.”
Kinberg admits
that Trask’s creations were another big driving force behind the choice of
storyline. “Once we all committed to “Days Of Future Past,” we knew the
Sentinels would be a part of it, and Trask would be central to the story,” he
says. “Bryan has done a lot of things to make the Sentinels feel loyal to the
books but also distinct from all the things that are ripped off the Sentinels,
like all the other robot movies that have come in the last 15 years or so, so
they look and feel different. And Bryan spent a lot of time working on them to
make them feel period specific but also cool and what a kid would fantasize
about.”
“X-Men: Days Of Future Past” (3D) is the biggest
X-Men film ever attempted, and indeed the biggest Fox has made since “Avatar.”
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