Back to the Future

From movies.com

Once it was revealed that the sequel to X-Men: First Class would be an adaptation of the very popular story arc in the comics called X-Men: Days of Future Past, people immediately began speculating about how much this new, prequel franchise would integrate with the first X-Men trilogy. The comic's story involves two different timelines merging, which certainly opens up the possibility of characters and actors from Bryan Singer's films once again reprising their roles. And lo and behold, that's exactly what's happening.

Singer, who recently took over directing the project from First Class director Matthew Vaughn, confirmed today on Twitter that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were joining Days of Future Past as Professor X and Magneto. He also confirmed that James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult would be returning as well, which is pretty damned awesome news, if you ask us.

Of course this early on we don't know how much of the film will take place in the McAvoy/Fassbender past and the Stewart/McKellen future, but if the director of the film is comfortable announcing the veteran actors now, it's safe to say they're not just going to be cute little cameos. And all this timeline blending will surely also server as a clever way to address some of the continuity issues that our own John Gholson pointed out when First Class released.

So what say you, X-Men fans? Are you excited to see the new and old school on the big screen together? Who else from Singer's X-Men films do you hope shows up here?