Bryan Singer has revealed some important news about X-Men: Days of Future Past, it's news that reveals he's combining the old and the new of the franchise and revealing that X-Men: The Last Stand was not actually the last stand for some of the actors.

Singer has revealed that he's bringing back the original cast, well some of them at least, and Days of Future Past is going to have them all in the same film together.

Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart will be returning to their roles as Professor X and Magneto while the new actors who took the roles as the younger characters in X-Men: First Class will also be returning, so far we know of James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven or Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy.

According to The Hollywood Reporter Bryan Singer tweeted the story that he was bringing back the original actors to X-Men: Days of Future Past, here's what he said in his concerning the new film:

"I'd like to officially welcome back James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, & Nicholas Hoult to #XMEN"

Which was closely followed by ...

"Thrilled to announce & are joining the cast of #XMEN #DaysOfFuturePast #magneto #professorX More to come.."

Now we know that the plot is going to follow a storyline from the Uncanny X-Men comic book series back from 1981 where all the mutants have been hunted down and either killed or interned in camps with giant robot Sentinels patrolling the country to find and capture more mutants. Meanwhile, back in the past, the X-Men of the current day have to stop an event from occurring that will create this horrific future for them.

Here's the blurb for the comic book plot from Wikipedia which reads:

The storyline alternates between present day, in which the X-Men fight Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and a future timeline caused by the X-Men's failure to prevent the Brotherhood from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly. In this future universe, Sentinels rule the United States, and mutants live in internment camps. The present-day X-Men are forewarned of the possible future by a future version of their teammate Kitty Pryde, whose mind traveled back in time and possessed her younger self to warn the X-Men. She succeeds in her mission and returns to the future, but despite her success, the future timeline still exists as an alternative timeline rather than as the actual future.

It's no surprise then that the two actors are returning for their roles, it'll be interesting to see which other actors return as well since it won't just be Professor X and Magneto sitting in their cells while all the other mutants that we know are dead, surely one or two we recognise will be alive? You know who I mean.

Looking at the blurb though it's clear that they won't be in the film for long, we'll need the future set-up, perhaps a few returns to see how the future fares when changes have been made in the present, and finally a return to see if everything has turned out alright in the end.

There are two questions that dog me though, how does Xavier look like Patrick Stewart if he swapped bodies at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand (Filmstalker review) and will Singer set it up for another film featuring the older characters? I really do hope that the latter question is answered positively for as much as I enjoy the younger versions, I would like to see a final return for the older characters to tie up their relationship.