Bryan Singer Announces News for Next X-Men Film

The X-Men have yet to venture into Days of Future Past on the big screen, but out director Bryan Singer has already announced the villain for the following mutant movie, reports Newsarama.

Singer tweeted Thursday that his follow-up film will include longtime X-Men villain Apocalypse and is scheduled to hit theaters in 2016. A representative from Fox Studios later followed up with the exact release date -- May 27, 2016.

Summer 2016 is shaping up to be the summer of Marvel on the big screen as the X-Men sequel, appropriately titled X-Men: Apocalypse, will join two as-yet-unidentified films from Marvel Studios - both part of the Avengers "Phase Three" family of films - which are also scheduled for release in May and June of the same year.

Singer's tweet immediately induced a wave of speculation among fans that the inclusion of the villain Apocalypse could mean themes from fan-favorite storylines of past X-Men comics will be incorporated into the next installment of the film franchise. Ranking high on the rumor mill list is the mid-1990s storyline "Age of Apocalypse," which saw the son of Professor Xavier traveling back in time and drastically altering the history of X-Men, resulting in a world ruled by Apocalypse. The storyline also features an alternate reality version of the first out gay superhero in the Marvel universe, Northstar.

Given that next summer's Days of Future Past also includes a time-travel component, speculation is high that Singer is setting up multiple ways in which the franchise featuring Marvel's mutants -- and the comic industry's most popular LGBT allegory -- could be given a fresh start.