50 Fun Facts About X-Men: Days of Future Past

Who directed X-Men: Days of Future Past?

Matthew Vaughn was set to return from First Class but left for Kingsman: The Secret Service.

In which year is the film's dystopian future set?

Ten years after release, in other words; the past is 1973.

Who plays the weapons designer behind the Sentinel programme?

The Game of Thrones star's Trask heads Trask Industries and is opposed by Nixon at first.

Whose power sends a person's consciousness into the past?

Writer Simon Kinberg gave her the secondary power; in the comics she is the one who travels.

Why does Wolverine make the trip to 1973 rather than the professor?

Kinberg also felt Wolverine's ageless look made him the sensible choice.

Where do the future X-Men make their last stand?

Storm, Colossus, Iceman and most of the others die there while buying time.

Who designed the Sentinels?

The weapons designer's 1973 murder is the event that must be prevented.

What does Magneto secretly infuse into Trask's prototype Sentinels so he can control them?

Non-metal prototypes would otherwise be beyond his reach.

Why has the young Xavier lost his telepathy in 1973?

Hank McCoy developed it; Charles has also turned to drink after the school closed.

Why is Magneto imprisoned beneath the Pentagon?

He claims he was actually trying to save Kennedy, who was a mutant.

Who plays Quicksilver?

Aaron Taylor-Johnson played a different Quicksilver in Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron a year later.

Where does the celebrated Quicksilver super-speed sequence take place?

Rising Sun Pictures created it, and many reviewers called it the effects centrepiece of the film.

Where does Mystique first try to kill Trask?

Xavier, Beast and Logan foil it, but Beast and the shapeshifter are exposed on camera as mutants.

Which US president authorises the Sentinel programme in the film?

Mark Camacho plays him; two X-Men comics writers cameo as congressmen.

What does Magneto lift to barricade the White House?

He has secretly rigged Trask's prototypes so he can control them.

How does Mystique subdue Magneto in the climax?

Plastic, of course, because he can control anything metal.

What convinces Mystique to spare Trask?

Because the public sees a mutant save the president, the Sentinel programme is scrapped.

What does Magneto do to Logan during the Washington battle?

A disguised ally fishes him out afterwards.

Which two X-Men, dead in the old timeline, does Logan find alive at the school in the new 2023?

Famke Janssen and James Marsden cameo, undoing The Last Stand.

How is Logan pulled from the Potomac in 1973?

Josh Helman plays the young Stryker in the rest of the film.

Who is building pyramids in the post-credits scene?

The ancient mutant became the villain of the 2016 sequel.

Which comics creators wrote the 1981 'Days of Future Past' storyline?

It ran in Uncanny X-Men #141-142; Claremont cameos in the film as a congressman.

Which character was the time-traveller in the first draft of the script?

Kinberg and Vaughn also considered Bishop and Cable before settling on Wolverine.

How did Matthew Vaughn want to open the film?

A trace of the idea survives in Magneto's Pentagon imprisonment.

Which two films did Vaughn leave Days of Future Past to make?

Fox went back to the director of the first two X-Men films.

Where was the film principally shot?

Mel's Cité du Cinéma, City Hall and McGill University all appear.

What was the film's production budget?

Twelve visual effects companies produced 1,311 shots.

Who makes an uncredited cameo as the future Beast, flown to set in secret?

The writers felt audiences would want to know Hoult's 'sweet, young' Beast survived.

Who both scored and edited the film, becoming the first composer to score two X-Men films?

He had scored X2 and worked with Singer since The Usual Suspects.

Whose role was cut to a cameo in cinemas, then restored in an alternate home-media version?

The Rogue Cut arrived in July 2015 with a more complex plot involving a raid on the old Cerebro.

What was the alternate 2015 version of the film called?

In it, Kitty is dating Iceman and is wounded, forcing a rescue of Rogue from Cerebro.

Why did the director withdraw from the film's publicity tour?

Michael Egan's civil suit was filed a month before release and later withdrawn.

Roughly how much did Days of Future Past gross worldwide?

It was the highest-grossing X-Men film until Deadpool overtook it in 2016.

Which Academy Award nomination did the film receive?

Interstellar won that year.

What Rotten Tomatoes critics' score did Days of Future Past hold as of 2025?

As of 2025 the film held 90% on Rotten Tomatoes; audiences gave it an A CinemaScore, and critics called it one of the finest in the series.

Who plays Bishop?

Booboo Stewart is Warpath and Adan Canto is Sunspot; Fan Bingbing plays Blink.

Which character was Josh Helman originally cast to play before the part was removed from the script?

He ended up as the young Major Bill Stryker instead.

Where do the Sentinels attack the X-Men in the opening scene?

Kitty, Colossus, Blink, Warpath, Bishop, Iceman and Sunspot are the survivors on the run.

Which two earlier films is Days of Future Past a direct sequel to?

It also follows on from The Wolverine, whose mid-credits scene set it up.

What is Trask later arrested for after the timeline changes?

A neat way of punishing him without the shapeshifter becoming a killer.

What was the 2016 sequel?

Its villain is the En Sabah Nur glimpsed after the credits.

Which two X-Men comics writers cameo as United States congressmen?

Wein co-created Wolverine; Claremont co-wrote the storyline the film is based on.

What covers the bodies of the future Sentinels, reflecting the shapeshifter DNA behind them?

The scaled bodies were created by adapting a tool originally built for hair and fur.

What does Kinberg say he believes in, to reassure fans that the earlier films were not 'erased'?

Certain events, he said, can exist equally in the histories of alternate universes.

In 1973, why has Xavier's school been closed for years when Logan arrives?

Hank McCoy tells Logan the news, along with the fact that Magneto is imprisoned for the Kennedy assassination.

Which Chinese actress plays Blink, the mutant who creates teleportation portals?

Singer said Blink, Bishop, Warpath and Sunspot were not fresh recruits but seasoned survivors in the 2023 timeline.

Which TV series inspired Bryan Singer to cast Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask?

Dinklage described Trask as arrogant and blindly ambitious, a man who 'sees what he's doing as a good thing'.

Which 1992 Western did Kinberg cite for the planned subplot of the elder Magneto and Xavier rescuing Rogue?

Most of Anna Paquin's scenes were cut in post-production and restored only in the home-media Rogue Cut.

How was Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique look changed from First Class to spare her skin irritation?

The suit's zipper was digitally removed, and Legacy Effects sculpted shorter scales to accentuate her face.

Which actor, who played Stryker in X2, appears in Days of Future Past only through archive footage?

Josh Helman plays the younger Major Bill Stryker in the 1973 scenes.