As he has been doing for the last few months, director Bryan Singer has released a brand new set photo from the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past on his Twitter page, and while we can't be 100% certain, it appears that Mystique, the shapeshifting mutant played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film, will be back up to her ol' ass kicking ways when the comic book movie hits theaters next May.
Because we can't see the character's face, it's hard to tell who the leg in the above image belongs to, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that it's the Hunger Games star. For one thing, there aren't too many blue and scaly mutants in the X-Men universe - but more importantly there are even fewer that have the physicality necessary to pin an adversary's throat with their foot. While Mystique's amazing acrobatic skills weren't really on display in X-Men: First Class - the first time that Lawrence portrayed the character - she was an amazingly skilled hand-to-hand fighter when she was portrayed by Rebecca Romijn the original X-Men trilogy. Considering Mystique's portions of Days of Future Past takes place about 10 years after the events of First Class, we can assume that she spent that time learning martial arts and acrobatics.
UPDATE: Singer has confirmed on Twitter that the leg we see does indeed belong to Jennifer Lawrence:
If this is in fact Mystique, this is actually the second time that Singer has posted an image of her on set. The first came back in May when Singer was posting a series of "character portraits" and came with the message, "First look: #JenniferLawrence as a vengeful #Mystique. #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast." Check it out below.
Speaking of the timeline of Days of Future Past, Singer recently spoke with Empire Magazine and cleared up exactly how the events of the upcoming film sync up with the continuity of the movies that have already come out. While we've known for a few months now that the "past" portion of the movie will take place in 1973, the director has now revealed that the "future" portion takes place about 10 years after the events of Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand. Where it stands in the timeline compared to James Mangold's The Wolverine, however, is still a bit unclear.
In the same interview, the director also upended early reports that said the new movie would be more of a sequel to First Class than a continuation of the original trilogy. In fact, in order to explain how the movie works he had to create a whole new term. Said Singer, "I’d say it’s not a sequel to one of the others. It’s an inbetwequel — that’s what I call it, for lack of a better word."
X-Men: Days of Future Past is still in production and has been set for release by 20th Century Fox on May 18, 2014.
