With only about a month left until X-Men: Apocalypse arrives in theaters, we’ve already seen a good amount of footage in various trailers and TV spots, but today’s events at CinemaCon – the annual convention held in Las Vegas for theater owners – revealed some new material that packed a pretty big punch. Not only was it one of the best cut previews for the upcoming blockbuster, but it revealed some pretty big plot points… including the fact that Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique will find herself as the leader of the young X-Men team, confirmation that Michael Fassbender’s Magneto is the father of Evan Peter’s Quicksilver, and more.
Because the X-Men: Apocalypse footage was cut as a trailer instead of an extended look at a single sequence, it’s a bit hard to describe everything that happened, but I certainly can tell you about the highlights. Easily one of the most significant moments plot-wise is a confrontation between James McAvoy’s Professor X and Oscar Isaac as the titular villain. Not only did the quick clip show that Xavier was back on two feet (despite being back in a wheelchair by the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past), but it also showed him getting his ass handed to him by the Egyptian, god-like mutant. Whether it’s because of the events of this scene or another, apparently the film features the professor getting taken by Apocalypse, leading Mystique to position herself as the leader of the X-Men, and bring Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) on a rescue mission.
The new look at the Bryan Singer-directed blockbuster also had some interesting things to reveal about Magneto – on beyond a comical scene where Quicksilver reveals to Mystique that the Master of Magnetism is his dad. Following the bit we’ve seen in previous trailers where exposition is delivered explaining how Apocalypse is followed by his "Four Horsemen," the footage had Professor X pleading with his friend-turned-enemy not to join this group, and Magneto explaining,
Whatever it is you think you saw in me, I buried it with my family.
Clearly he’s not referring to Quicksilver. It seems that Magneto was actually able to find a spot of happiness in the 10 years since the events shown in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it seems that happiness was also ripped from him, leaving him alone and without hope. We already know that he does in fact wind up becoming one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen (alongside Alexandra Shipp’s Storm, Ben Hardy’s Angel, and Olivia Munn’s Psylocke), so it seems that the central villain of the film is able to take full advantage of his emotionally damaged state.
Beyond those key moments, the new look at X-Men: Apocalypse also featured some cool battles between Beast and Psylocke and Cyclops and Storm, suggesting we can definitely expect some high-stakes action in the movie. It’s true that the film will be the fourth comic book title to arrive in 2016 – following Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Captain America: Civil War, but we are far from tired of the genre, and thanks to what was shown at CinemaCon, our expectations are high.
X-Men: Apocalypse will be in theaters May 27th.
