Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class Sequel Would Have Preceded Days of Future Past

X-Men: First Class was immediately followed by the Days of Future Past film, but Matthew Vaughn wanted one in-between. Vaughn spoke with ComingSoon.net and said that he didn’t continue working on the franchise after First Class because Fox wanted to jump straight to the “Future Past” storyline, rather than include another film that allowed the characters room to develop.

“My plan was First Class, then second film was new young Wolverine in the 70’s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men,” he said. “So you’d really get to know all of them, and my finale was gonna be Days of Future Past. That was gonna be my number three where you bring them all… because what’s bigger than bringing in McKellen and Michael and Stewart and James and bringing them all together?”

Vaughn continued, “When I finished the Days of Future Past script with it ready to go I looked at it and said, ‘I really think it would be fun to cast Tom Hardy or someone as the young Wolverine and then bring it all together at the end.’ Fox read Days of Future Past and went ‘Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!’”

Days of Future Past was a critical and commercial hit, though its follow-up X-Men Apocalypse was much less so. The final X-Men film outside of Disney’s purview, Dark Phoenix opens on June 7th.