James talks to X-Men: Days Of Future Past writer/producer about sequels, adaptations, and new characters…

Warning: this interview contains some minor spoilers for X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

It wasnt our first instinct as a sequel toFirst Class.

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That andDark Phoenixwere my two favourite storylines from the comics.

I never thought of doing it because it seemed too ambitious just from a casting POV.

And, to be honest, I was a little bit daunted by time travel.

As a writer, its the scariest sub-genre of science fiction.

The paradoxes, the complexities, its a nightmare.

It was a wild assumption that somehow managed to come to be.

And then we started talking about how do you makeDOFPinto a movie?

So immediately, we had a problem to crack.

Wolverine was not the first character we thought of.

Yes, totally, thats 100% what we were going for!

And you know as a fan, this franchise is character-driven.

Shes the fulcrum between Charles and Erik, shes the one whose morality is up for grabs.

And so thats how we dramatised that.

It made it easier for me, because I like having definitions.

I like knowing where the walls are when I start working.

And then finding ways to subvert them.

Thats what I feel we did in this movie.

Did you feel like you were writing the last hurrah for the original versions of the characters?

Well, not really.

But when you talk to Patrick and Ian, theyre always very game for more.

I can see stand-alones, spin-offs, sequels to the originals, reboots, whatever the best story is.

It can be told.

At the end of this movie, everybody as far as you’re free to tell is alive.

So thats better than the end ofX3.

Of the new characters, Id say Quicksilver.

I really enjoyed his character, and what Bryan did with him visually was spectacular.

And Evan Peters is great, he did something really interesting with the character.

Id loved to have seen more of him.

In truth, those characters were constructed as sort of soldiers.

In any other movie theyd have been guys with uniforms on.

But because its anX-Menmovie, theyre mutants, so I wanted to make them specific to the books.

And then maybe they come back in another film?

Yes, theres a chance of that happening, absolutely.

We have options on all those actors for a reason.

But you never know who is or is coming back until its being written.

When it comes to anyone weve shown on film, the door is always open.

So yeah, you could see them again.

X-Men: Days Of Future Pastis out now.