Trivia / X-Men: Days of Future Past

• Ability over Appearance: In the comic books, Bolivar Trask is a taller fellow while Peter Dinklage, who portrays him, has dwarfism. He's an Emmy-winning actor whose performances are frequently met with critical acclaim, and since his appearance has very little bearing on the character, nobody has made anything of it.
• Actor-Inspired Element: By his own admission, Michael Fassbender slightly altered his voice so that he would sound a little more like a younger Ian McKellen compared to how he sounded in X-Men: First Class, as he wanted to be able to bridge their respective performances of Magneto together since they both would appear in the same movie.
• All-Star Cast:
  • From the original X-Men film trilogy: Patrick Stewart as future Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as future Magneto, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Elliot Page as Kitty Pryde, Halle Berry as Storm, and Anna Paquin as Rogue for three seconds. James Marsden (as Cyclops), Famke Janssen (as Jean Grey) and Kelsey Grammer (as the older Beast) all made a cameo.
  • From First Class: James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique.
  • New addition: Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. Fan Bingbing (Blink) isn't as well known in the West but she's the biggest actress in China.
  • With the new additions and cameos from older casts, this comic book movie featured at least 10 Oscar nominees or winners.
• Ashcan Copy: While the treatment is mostly for predecessor First Class (done to keep X-Men within Fox's domains), the film can be considered the greatest ashcan copy of all time, if aggregate reviews are anything to go by.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Kelsey Grammer loved playing Beast so much that when Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan let him know the band was being put back together for Days, he immediately called Bryan Singer to get him in the movie, somewhere, and was flown in on Singer's private jet in secret for a last-second cameo.
• Billing Displacement:
  • Anna Paquin only appears in a brief cameo with no lines, but is listed higher than Peter Dinklage and Elliot Page, whose characters have plenty of screentime and are essential to the plot. Paquin's scenes were restored on The Rogue Cut Blu-Ray/DVD release, but Rogue's part is still small.
  • Storm was only a minor character, yet Halle Berry's name is listed above Nicholas Hoult's, who had a large supporting role.
  • Omar Sy's name is shown before Evan Peters' and Josh Helman's during the end credits despite the fact that Bishop was merely a glorified extra who speaks a few words while Quicksilver and Major Stryker had a lot more dialogue.
• California Doubling: The Paris scenes were filmed in Old Montreal, and parts of the Pentagon (like the area where we see visitors touring the building, and when Charles and Logan are walking alone in a basement corridor) are from the Arts Building at McGill University. The Moscow bunker is located beneath the rafters of The Big O (the informal name of Montreal's Olympic Stadium). Mystique jumped out of the window of the mayor's office at Montreal City Hall.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Josh Helman was originally cast as a younger version of Juggernaut before the role was replaced by Quicksilver. He was then cast as the young William Stryker to compensate for his role being cut.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Ayame Gouriki (who played Shiori Genpo in the Black Butler live-action film) voices Mystique.
• Creator Backlash: Michael Fassbender really isn't fond of the scene where Erik gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Charles while on the plane, as he felt that his performance amounted to little more than "some dude shouting".
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Bryan Singer cast Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Task because he and his wife were fans of Game of Thrones.
• Creator's Favorite: Bryan Singer has admitted at both the SDCC panel and the "X-Men Unguarded" group discussion on The Rogue Cut Blu-Ray/DVD that Professor X is his favourite X-Men character (he even got a Cerebro helmet tattoo with Patrick Stewart providing him moral support after this movie broke the $700 million mark). This is why the younger Xavier gets to be the central figure of Days of Future Past instead of the younger Magneto for the second time in a row as Matthew Vaughn had originally planned. (Erik is Vaughn's favourite.)
• Dawson Casting: Evan Peters, who was 26 years old during filming, portrays the teenaged Peter Maximoff.
• Deleted Role: Anna Paquin's role as Rogue was all but cut out of the original theatrical (and the regular Blu-Ray/DVD) release, leaving her with a major listing in the closing credits and even her own poster, but a grand total of 3 seconds (that's being generous) of actual screen time and not a line of dialogue.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Disowned Adaptation: John Byrne said that if he had been invited to cameo in the film, inspired by an arc of the comics he penciled, he would feel "a lot like the prom scene in Carrie" given "I've haaaaaaaaated what the movies have done with the X-Men".
• Dueling Movies: With Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, both also being Marvel films made by different studios. Cap and Days wound up virtually even critically and commercially; both topped $700m worldwide (Cap made slightly more in the US, Days slightly more internationally) and Days finished with a 91% Rotten Tomatoes critic approval aggregate, with Cap at 89%.
  • With Avengers: Age of Ultron. Reportedly, when Marvel Studios announced that Quicksilver would be appearing in Ultron, Fox decided to beat them to the punch by adding Quicksilver to their lineup.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Hugh Jackman has declared this when he was warned about this film during the shoot of The Wolverine:
  "I must admit I was starting to see a life free of steamed chicken breasts. They told me the idea and, at the time, it was Matthew Vaughn [directing]. Instantly, I knew it was a winner. It just felt like everything was coming full circle. However, I must admit my stomach and my mind were like, 'Oh no.'"
• Executive Meddling: While no cases have been known, it was enough to spark Creative Differences for producer Lauren Shuler Donner to make her leave the franchise (she's still credited in all following movies due to her contract - to the point that Donner eventually tweeted "Save your condolences. I had zero, nothing to do with Dark Phoenix. Or Apocalypse, or New Mutants.").
• Fake Nationality: In addition to the ones from the previous movies, Australian Josh Helman as the young William Stryker (American), Mexican Adan Canto as Sunspot (Brazillian), Canadian Mark Camacho as Richard Nixon (American, obviously) and Canadian Brendan Pedder as Apocalypse (Egyptian).
• Follow the Leader: The Crisis Crossover and huge cast were conceived in response to the success of The Avengers (2012).
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Halle Berry's role as Storm had to be rewritten following an unexpected pregnancy. Though they were able to finish shooting while Berry could still fit her costume (though only by a week or so), all of Storm's flight and hand-to-hand combat scenes had to be cut from the script.
• Lying Creator: Prior to the release of the movie, Bryan Singer, Famke Jansen, and James Marsden all claimed that Jean Grey and Cyclops would not be appearing in the film in any way. They lied to hide the fact that Cyclops and Jean were shown Back from the Dead in the surprise Everyone Lives ending.
• Meaningful Release Date: The Rogue Cut was released in North America on July 14, 2015, which is the 15th anniversary of the X-Men Film Series.
• The Other Darrin: In The Last Stand, Bill Duke played a Senator Trask. Which was a possible Sequel Hook, but wound up in turning that into another guy with the surname Trask given Bolivar became Peter Dinklage, rendering standard other Darrin-ing impossible due to the substantial physical differences between the two actors.
  • In the Japanese dub of The Rogue Edition, older Magneto is voiced by Katsumi Cho, rather than Iemasa Kayumi like in the theatrical release, because the latter passed away at the time when that edition was released in Japan. The same goes with Mystique, as in the theatrical release she was voiced by the movie actress Ayame Gouriki, but she's replaced with Hiroko Ushida in the dub, possibly due to licensing.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Ricardo Tejedo replaces José Arenas as the younger Magneto.
• Playing Against Type: James McAvoy's portrayal of a mentally ill Xavier in Days Of Future Past is the complete opposite of the Wide-Eyed Idealist we saw in X-Men: First Class (which is the actor's most notable example of Typecasting).
• Promoted Fanboy: James McAvoy gets to play a scene with Sir Patrick Stewart, whom he is a fan of, and isn't shy about expressing how much that delights him in interviews. The standard Blu-Ray release includes a featurette called "Double Take: Xavier & Magneto" where McAvoy can't stop fanboy-ing over Stewart.
• Reality Subtext: A major theme is the concept of a second chance in the face of the mutant race's impending extinction. This could be seen as a nod to the fact that the movie is seen by some as a last-ditch effort to revitalize the X-Men Film Series, which had been in a box office tailspin since the release of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
• Referenced by...:
  • In the HISHE parody of Avengers: Age of Ultron, there is a joke where the MCU's Quicksilver rescues an ally from a hail of bullets much like FOX's Quicksilver does in the Pentagon kitchen scene, complete with a spoof version of Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" playing in the background.
  • In The Flash (2014) episode "Elongated Journey in the Night", Barry makes two bad cops knock each other out in the same manner as Quicksilver.
• Similarly Named Works:
  • The film is in no way connected to the album Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues.
  • Also not to be confused with the similar sounding trope Days of Future Past.
• Throw It In!: In a Deleted Scene, Logan learns about what the time travel process entails and at the end him and Storm share a kiss before he goes to do the procedure, implying they've had a relationship going on for some time and know whatever happens this will be their last time together. This was not in the script and happened because of a Hilarious Outtake where Jackman and Barry improvised a comical, sloppy kiss and when it was done Logan brushed it off and Storm went happily skipping out of the scene. Singer liked the idea and tried to integrate it into the actual scene, the scene itself ended up cut because of pacing and blocking issues.
• Wag the Director: The script called for Logan to wake up in 1973 in boxer shorts. Hugh Jackman vetoed this, in favor of waking nude, saying, "In Australia, if you're next to a really good-looking girl, you're not getting out with boxer shorts on, or briefs, or anything!"
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jamie Campbell Bower and Nico Tortorella auditioned for the role of Peter Maximoff before Evan Peters was cast.
  • Angel, Azazel, Riptide, and Emma were intended to return, until they decided to go with the Days of Future Past story and killed the former Hellfire Club offscreen.
  • According to Singer himself, Deadpool and Gambit were supposed to appear in the film.
  • Among the concept art that has surfaced for the film is a costume concept◊ of Jubilee for the future scenes, indicating that she was among the characters considered for the film. Lana Condor would play Jubilee in X-Men Apocalypse.
  • Rockslide was also planned as one of the future X-Men, but did not make it past the storyboard stage. However, a Sentinel mimicking his powers does still appear as a bit of an Orphaned Reference.
  • The mutant who helps the heroes break Magneto out of jail was originally going to be a teenage version of Cain Marko, aka The Juggernaut. The script was rewritten to feature Quicksilver in the jailbreak sequence instead, and Josh Helman, the actor who was cast as Marko, was chosen to play a young version of William Stryker (the Big Bad of X2: X-Men United) to make up for his role being cut.
  • Betsy Braddock, aka Psylocke, was also considered to make an appearance in the film, but was cut from the script early. It does not help that before the film came out, many were confusing Fan Bingbing's Blink for her. Psylocke is played by Olivia Munn in X-Men: Apocalypse.
  • A major Deleted Scene would have turned the plot of the movie on its ear had it been kept as it featured Mystique returning to Charles's mansion where she has her gunshot wound tended to by Hank and is basically completely filled in on her role in the story arc, which although Mystique remains defiant, still pretty much would have left the film with nowhere to go had it been kept.
  • Stan Lee was offered a cameo, but opted out so he could attend Fan Expo Canada in Toronto.
  • Singer also wanted a younger Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, to show up as well, but he thought there were already too many characters as it was. However, Kodi Smit-McPhee was cast as Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse.
  • Rachel Summers was originally going to be the one to send Wolverine back in time and have a complicated relationship with Storm, but her role was cut and given to Kitty because Simon Kinberg felt the movie already had enough drama and characters.
  • Scenes implying a romance between Storm and Logan were filmed, but cut for time.
  • Beast was to appear in the future scenes but Kelsey Grammer was busy filming Transformers: Age of Extinction. His cameo was added in re-shoots.
  • Havok was to be captured later on in the film and used to test a prototype Sentinel. It was cut for time purposes. This explains why Havok is not seen when Magneto makes his broadcast, but Ink and Toad are.
  • In Matthew Vaughn's intended version of the film, Magneto would have intended to kill JFK as revenge for the murders of Angel and Azazel. Raven would also have attempted to pose as Kennedy, with help from Emma Frost, in an attempt to gain power. It would have backfired horribly, explaining the anti-Mutant sentiment.
  • Vaughn's version of Days of Future Past was also intended to be the third installment of the X-Men prequel series, rather than the second. The second film would've been set in the 70s, and would've introduced a new actor as a younger Wolverine, with plans for this new version of the character to encounter the original Hugh Jackman Wolverine during the eventual Days of Future Past film, which would've been set in the 80s. Had this happened, Vaughn's pick for the younger Wolverine was Tom Hardy.

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