In my look back at X-Men: The Last Stand, I noted that it wasn't an awful film as much as it's a frustrating one since it's trying to pursue two storylines: "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and another about the mutant "cure".  Simon Kinberg, who wrote the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past and co-wrote The Last Stand, also isn't completely pleased with the 2006 film.  Specifically, he regrets "that "The Dark Phoenix story wasn’t the primary story of the movie."  He goes on to tell say that he regrets where The Last Stand ended up, but like the characters in Days of Future Past, he now has an opportunity to right a past wrong.  "It’s sort of a chance for me to go back and do differently what I did ten years ago on ‘X3'," says Kinberg.

Hit the jump for more including a brief update on the next X-Men movie, X-Men: ApocalypseX-Men: Days of Future Past opens on Friday.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

When ScreenCrush asked Kinberg if he wouldn't have fought as hard for Dark Phoenix had he known it wouldn't be the main storyline, the writer-producer responded:

No, I would have fought harder for The Dark Phoenix. Listen, I think if we made that movie today, there are a lot of things that would be different. The universe today, culturally, is more open to a darker superhero film. And the darkness of her story was a little bit daunting on a huge $200 million studio movie. And, it would be less daunting today.

While I agree that audiences are now more receptive to darker superhero movies, I would still say that X-Men: The Last Stand is still pretty dark from a story perspective: Jean Grey kills her husband, disintegrates Professor X, and Wolverine is forced to kill the woman he loves.  The film's tone betrays this darkness, but it's certainly there as far as the Dark Phoenix's actions are concerned.

But now in the present day, Kinberg is happy with the latest X-Men movie, and looking ahead to the next one, X-Men: Apocalypse, he told Total Film that Quicksilver would be returning:

We talked about bringing Scarlet Witch into the mix for [X-Men: Days of Future Past]. Actually, there was a little scene that we shot that we ended up cutting out of the movie that alluded to her. But it was sort of an interstitial scene that didn’t push the movie forward, so it ended up being cut…But [Quicksilver] would absolutely be back for the next X-Men movie.

Once you see Days of Future Past, you'll probably be very happy about this news.  He's easily one of the highlights of the movie.

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