With the premiere later this month of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the mutants move from the early-1960s setting of First Class to the 1970s and a dystopian alternate future. It's only a brief visit, though, as Bryan Singer confirmed in March that X-Men: Apocalypse will see the characters jump forward into the '80s, where fans could see Gambit and possibly a young Nightcrawler.

The shift of course inches the setting closer to that of the Singer-directed 2000 film that launched the Fox franchise, which offers at least some indication of the plans for Apocalypse.

“My next goal, is how did the X-Men come together?" Singer told SciFiNow. "That story hasn’t been told yet, so [Days of Future Past] is the inbetweequel. It’s in between the birth of that relationship with Charles and Erik and the formation of the X-Men.”

Assuming the core team includes Cyclops, Jean Grey and Storm -- who in X-Men were already instructors at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngster -- that would seem to point to new, younger actors cast being in the roles originated by James Marsden, Famke Janssen and Halle Berry, right?

“Yeah, exactly,” Singer told the magazine.

X-Men: Days of Future Past opens on May 23.