Earlier this week came the X-Men: Apocalypse trailer that confirmed what we all suspected: Wolverine would be making an appearance in the upcoming X-Men movie after all. Most of us also assumed that decision was made because Hugh Jackman is a huge star and Wolverine is the most popular and recognizable of the X-Men and having him in the movie means more $$$. According to director Bryan Singer, it wasn’t about box office, but instead it was the “birth of a new direction” for Wolverine and the X-Men movies.

Singer spoke to Empire providing a commentary on the new X-Men: Apocalypse trailer and had this to say about that trailer post-credits scene:

Make of that what you want. I will say, it’s not simple. There’s something more pivotal that occurs with that. It hints to a sequence that again fits within the canon of all six movies, and the birth of a new direction. It’s not insignificant, nor is it simply just a throw-in… It’s not the only shot you’re gonna see, let’s put it that way.

I don’t know that anyone thought that the only shot of Wolverine in X-Men: Apocalypse would be a two-second shot of the back of one of his arms, but thanks for the clarification regardless. Far more interesting is Singer’s note that it’s a “pivotal” scene that “fits within the canon of all six” X-Men movies.

Judging by the look of that hallway and the blood on Wolverine’s knuckles, it looks like the X-Men may have stumbled upon the facility where Logan gets the adamantium bonded to his skeleton. We know that Josh Helman reprises his role as Gen. Stryker in the film and presumably we revisit the time around when the Weapon X experimenting is going on. If you’re having horrible flashbacks to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we could not be more sympathetic, but Singer made clear that he’s tying in to the “six” X-Men movies, which would not include any of the spinoffs.

What exactly the birth of a new direction is is a little unclear, but Singer is likely referring to his own rejiggering of the film’s timeline. In X-Men: Apocalypse, he would be encountering Cyclops and Jean Grey in the early 1980s, well before he met them in the first X-Men movie. Perhaps the time traveling effects of X-Men: Days of Future Past are still being felt. Or perhaps this was just a fun way to sneak in a quick Wolverine cameo and make some extra money.

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