After knocking it out of the park this summer with X-Men: Days of Future Past, all eyes are on director Bryan Singer, who has a lot to live up to with the 2016 sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse. Described as a sort of 1980’s disaster film, Apocalypse will conclude the First Class trilogy and, by all accounts, sounds like the biggest X-Men film yet.
One easy way Singer can win some immediate fan goodwill is by bringing back Evan Peters as Quicksilver, the headphone-wearing speedster who stole the show in Days of Future Past despite some extremely negative reactions to early marketing material. We’ve heard rumors that Peters would appear in Apocalypse, but now it’s been made official thanks to former stuntman Brian Smrz, who served as second unit director on DOFP and was responsible for much of Quicksilver’s jaw-dropping scene in the Pentagon kitchen.
In a new interview, Smrz talked a bit about returning to the franchise and confirmed Quicksilver’s return:
“Well, there will be another Quicksilver scene, which I’m looking forward to; that’ll be fun. Other than that, I can’t really say much – I’m looking forward to working with the cast and crew again. I’ve worked with Hugh Jackman four times before this, and I love the younger cast who’s already great to work with as well.”
Smrz said that he’ll work part-time on the film during the current pre-production stages, but will start getting more involved in the project by the end of the year. He’s also interested in graduating from second unit director to the primary director of a feature film, and would love to make a Quicksilver movie:
“We talked about Quicksilver before, I’d love to do a Quicksilver as a solo film becuase there’s a lot to enjoy with that character. But I’m not geared just towards superhero movies; for me it’s about great main characters, and finding movies that have that.”
Considering how popular the character was in DOFP, it’s easy to see why a Quicksilver film would be considered. However, there’s a vast library of mutants for Singer and co. to choose from, and I just don’t see him getting his own film over someone like Mystique or a team like X-Force.
Plus, with stiff speedster competition coming from all sides (a different version of Quicksilver appears in Avengers: Age of Ultron, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, while The Flash, played by Ezra Miller, is getting his own film in 2018 on top of the current TV series that stars Grant Gustin), I wonder if the character would be able to sustain a solo franchise at this point. Regardless, we did hear that the he could feature in the X-Men TV series that’s currently in development, so perhaps he’ll continue to live on in live-action that way.
Tell us, would you like to see a Quicksilver solo film? And, are you happy that he’ll be returning for X-Men: Apocalypse? Sound off in the comments section below.
