How James Cameron had a hand in changing the X-Men: Days of Future Past ending

It’s no secret that James Cameron’s The Terminator has been a highly influential film across all media, but the fan-favorite film was pre-dated by a similar story in the 1980s, the X-Men comic book storyline titled “Days of Future Past.”

Naturally when the story was finally adapted to film, director Bryan Singer and screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg approached Cameron about their ideas, specifically the science of their time travel. The pair even mentioned this to us when we visited the set of the film in 2013, but James Cameron helped out the production in another way.

While on the set of X-Men: Apocalypse, Singer told us how James Cameron helped shape the final scene of “Days of Future Past,” which almost had a different tone to its happy ending.

“Originally my editor was obsessed with this visual blurriness,” Singer revealed. “So when Wolverine is walking around he’s seeing things in kind of a blurriness. So I sent that to Jim and Jim called me up and goes ‘Bryan, that blurry thing made me think that the wool was going to be pulled out from under me and I was not satisfied. I thought it was going to be a lie and it had failed and it would all be dark, and then suddenly it was okay.’ It was the only note Jim gave me. He said ‘Oh I love the movie, it’s going to be great,’ but he said ‘Let the audience enjoy the fact that it all turned out okay… in that future.’” So I pulled the effect off and my editor was like ‘Oh I like it, it’s so cool and weird!’ and I’m like ‘Shut up, it’s coming off!’”

As a post script to the story, Singer revealed the version he sent to Cameron didn’t include the cameos of the original cast members that we saw in the final threatrical version.

“I explained that to Jim and I said ‘By the way, it didnt have these three cameos’ and he goes “OH Why didn’t you tell me that? That makes a big difference dude in letting me enjoy the ending of the g***amn f***ing movie!’ and I’m like ‘Sorry, I’m keeping that so secret I didn’t even want to let that go to New Zealand.’”

You can read our full report from the set of X-Men: Apocalypse by clicking here.

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