X-MEN:
APOCALYPSE.

A POST-CREDITS NAME TURNED INTO A THIRD FILM

HOW THE FIRST CLASS TRILOGY GOT ITS DISASTER MOVIE

The last scene of X-Men: Days of Future Past had already named En Sabah Nur, and by then the sequel carried its date of 27 May 2016. Singer said in 2014 that the film would be set in the 1980s and have more of the mass destruction earlier X-Men films had not relied upon. By 24 November 2014 Oscar Isaac had closed a deal to play the title villain, with Idris Elba and Pedro Pascal reportedly among the others considered. The character’s name translates to “the first one,” a reference to being the first human born with the mutant-X gene, and shooting was planned for spring 2015.

Simon Kinberg wrote the screenplay, from a story by Singer, Kinberg, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris. Kinberg saw the First Class films as a character-driven trilogy following Charles, Erik, Hank and Raven, with Mystique as the emotional center across the three films, a character who moves between the poles of Xavier and Magneto.

“with Apocalypse we’re doing a disaster movie.”

Simon Kinberg, on how each film in the trilogy took a different genre approach

Kinberg called the villain an amalgam of several versions from the comics and cartoons, and the most powerful mutant the series had shown. Singer said Apocalypse has gathered powers over centuries by moving from body to body, that he can amplify other mutants’ powers, and that his greatest power is the power of persuasion. He compared the character’s mentality to the God of the Old Testament.

A NEW SET OF STUDENTS FOR THE OLD MANSION

HOW THE FILM REBUILT THE ORIGINAL TEAM AS TEENAGERS IN 1983

On 23 January 2015 Singer announced on Twitter that Sophie Turner would play Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan would play Cyclops and Alexandra Shipp would play Storm. They took on roles played in the earlier films by Famke Janssen, James Marsden and Halle Berry. Kinberg said the production prioritized discovering talent before superhero saturation claimed them, in the way an unknown Michael Fassbender was cast in First Class, and that Oscar Isaac was chosen partly because he had not already anchored another franchise.

The 1983 setting also shaped the tone. Kinberg described the 1983 setting as combining an extinction-level threat with 80s kitschiness. One knowing joke follows from it. After the teenagers sneak out to see Return of the Jedi, Jean says, “We can all agree the third one is the worst.” Den of Geek’s David Crow suggested it applies to this trilogy as well.

Crow gave the film three stars out of five, calling it a step down from Days of Future Past. He singled out Evan Peters’s Quicksilver as a scene-stealer, praised Michael Fassbender for conveying more humanity in his sorrows than the genre is accustomed to, and thought Sheridan and Turner showed promise.

TWO HOURS IN THE CHAIR AND A CAIRO MADE OF 150,000 ASSETS

HOW APOCALYPSE WAS BUILT, FROM ISAAC’S SUIT TO THE DESTRUCTION OF CAIRO

Legacy Effects created the physical design for Apocalypse, and Isaac spent about two hours in the makeup chair each day, followed by digital effects added in post-production. Singer said he preferred practical makeup over CGI because it makes the character real for the actor and for the people playing against him.

For Isaac it was a hard shoot. He was glued into latex prosthetics and a 40-pound suit, with constant cooling equipment, a specially designed saddle to sit on between takes, a cooling tent, and all his dialogue dubbed afterwards because the rubber and plastic squeaked.

The effects work was spread across several vendors under visual effects supervisor John Dykstra. Digital Domain handled the opening sequence in ancient Egypt, including one shot with 295,000 digital crowd agents. The plan had been for 500 extras on set, but the production ended up with closer to 25. MPC completed about 992 shots across three facilities, centred on the climactic Cairo battle in a digitally reconstructed city of 150,000 assets. Cinesite added roughly 30 more, including Nightcrawler’s dimensional jumps.

A SECOND QUICKSILVER SET PIECE AND A DETOUR TO WEAPON X

THE MANSION RESCUE TO “SWEET DREAMS” AND THE WOLVERINE CAMEO

Evan Peters’s Quicksilver got a second showpiece, set to the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” as he pulls students out of the exploding mansion. Rising Sun Pictures, which handled the first film’s kitchen scene, returned with an order of magnitude more work: 150 artists over eight months, triple the previous film’s team. The production shot at up to 3,000 frames per second, with camera movements reaching 90 mph.

Students were filmed on wires against greenscreen, some on a piston setup that raised them to simulate blasts, and still frames of the students were projected back onto their bodies during freeze-frame moments to hide wire sway. Rising Sun’s visual effects supervisor Dennis Jones and his team built roughly 80 digital props for the destruction.

The film’s other surprise is a side trip to Alkali Lake, where Hugh Jackman appears as a feral Wolverine in Weapon X form. Kinberg described the sequence as “a very violent, visceral sequence that is different from anything we’ve seen of Wolverine in previous movies.” Singer explained the scenario as inevitable because of time’s immutability. A post-credits scene shows operatives collecting blood samples from the facility into a satchel labeled Essex Corp.

THE REWATCH

A CHOKING POSTER, A $65.8 MILLION OPENING AND A SPLIT VERDICT

A marketing misstep followed around the US release. A poster showing Apocalypse choking Mystique, with the tagline “Only the strong will survive,” appeared in public spaces including New York subway stations. Rose McGowan criticised it, and Fox apologised, saying that in its enthusiasm to show the villainy of Apocalypse it had not immediately recognised the upsetting connotation of the image in print form.

X-Men: Apocalypse opened to $65.8 million over three days in the US and finished with $155.4 million domestically and $388.5 million internationally, for $543.9 million worldwide against a $178 million budget. Days of Future Past opened to $90.8 million and finished with $746.0 million worldwide on a $200 million budget. The opening was softer than anticipated and among the lower ones in the series, though it still topped the weekend.

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 47% critics’ score from 344 reviews, and its consensus calls the film an overloaded action film with a clichéd villain and a middling chapter of the franchise. Metacritic’s Metascore is 52 from 48 critic reviews. Vulture’s David Edelstein scored it 80 for its overflowing ensemble, while another critic called it “a confused, bloated mess of a film.”

For a first watch, X-Men: Apocalypse sits in the Marvel movies in release order guide directly after Captain America: Civil War, with Doctor Strange next. In the X-Men movies in order guide it comes directly after Deadpool, with Legion · Season 1 next.