<i>X-Men: Days of Future Past</i> Might Feature Sentinels, Mark Millar Says

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X-Men: Days of Future Past Might Feature Sentinels, Mark Millar Says

By Terri Schwartz

Published Oct 19, 2012

Mark Millar explains in a new interview that X-Men: Days of Future Past will feature robots, time travel and superheroes, all of which point to a Sentinels storyline.

We can jump to a lot of conclusions about X-Men: Days of Future Past, considering Fox's X-Men: First Class sequel is based on the "Days of Future Past" storyline, but up until now we weren't sure how closely the upcoming Fox flick will stick to its source material. Fortunately, the studio's newly minted Marvel creative consultant Mark Millar has helped shed some light on the plot of the film in a new interview.

"[Director Matthew] Vaughn is going for a big sci-fi style thing with X-Men: Days of Future Past," Millar told Total Film. "It's X-Men meets The Terminator. You've got robots, you've got time travel, you've got superheroes -- it's got everything in one film."

That sounds like Millar is referencing the Sentinels, who made a brief big screen appearance in X-Men: The Last Stand. Those mutant-hunting robots were a major part of the "Days of Future Past" future, alternate universe storyline, so it would make sense that they would be brought into the film as well. At least that gives us a general sense of how closely X-Men: Days of Future Past will tie with the comics its based on.

Millar continued, "Cost-wise [Days of Future Past is] going to go up, and ambitious-wise it's gone up. But Vaughn can handle it. Vaughn made Kick-Ass for $28 million."

X-Men: Days of Future Past is set to start shooting in January, with the film due out in theaters on July 18, 2014. Stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence are expected to return.

The 1981 Days of Future Past story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, which appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #141-142, depicts a timeline created by the X-Men’s failure to prevent the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from assassinating a U.S. senator. In that alternate future, the giant robotic Sentinels have become the de facto rulers of the United States, where mutants are hunted down and placed in internment camps. It seems likely the X-Men: First Class sequel would deviate significantly from the source material, as several characters who played key roles in the original story were not part of the 2011 film.