An Explanation of the X-Men Movie Timeline After X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is Still Kind of Confusing




X-MEN: APOCALYPSE Producer Simon Kinberg and director Bryan Singer spoke with Collider about the ever-changing and somewhat still confusing X-Men movie timeline that once supposed to be fixed by X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and its time travel story arc.

“'It’s not leading necessarily toward exactly where we found Patrick Stewart and the X-Men at the beginning of X-Men 1,' Kinberg says. 'There are some things that lead in that general direction, that was part of the philosophy we had at the end of Days of Future Past is that you can’t fully change the course or current of the river, but you can just divert it a little bit, and we diverted it a little bit.  
“'The idea that time is like a river,' Singer says. 'You can splash it and mess it up and throw rocks in it and shatter it but it eventually kind of coalesces and this is, again, quantum physics theory. It’s all based in quantum physics. That’s why I fought so hard to make sure we have Hank McCoy talk about the theory of time’s immutability, because that defines what I’m doing with this universe and with these prequels to X1, 2 and 3, which are erased — or are they not?' 
“'So what I’m doing with these 'in-betweenqueels' is playing with time’s immutability and the prequel concept, meaning that yes we erased those storylines and anything can happen,' Singer continued. 'That means the audience goes into the movie thinking that anything can happen. I mean anything, anyone could die. Any possibility could occur, but characters are still moving towards their immutable place. Jean and Scott, are they meant to be together? Is Scott, this guy who hates schools and hates authority, destined to become a leader? You don’t know. Is Jean ever going to discover the full potential of her power? You don’t know, but we move in those directions character-wise but then we have the freedom story-wise to do whatever the fuck we want because we erased those three movies.' 
“'When two things are happening simultaneously in quantum physics it’s what’s called the Super Position and when the Observer finally observes the outcome that’s called the ‘Collapsing of the Super Position’ which is what happened when Wolverine woke up and saw all the happiness,' Singer says. 'So yes that is the outcome we hope for, that is the outcome we aspire to, and that’s the outcome we are moving towards, but we saw in Days of Future Past another dark world. What says that can’t happen again? What says the awakening of a being that has such power and can acquire the power to destabilize that? So anything is possible.'"