X-Men Apocalypse to be set in 1983 ten years after Days of Future Past

Sequel will focus on the First Class cast

X-Men: Apocalypse will focus on the immortal titular villain (Marvel)

X-Men writer-producer Simon Kinberg has revealed that its next instalment, Apocalypse, will centre on the First Class cast in 1983.

The franchise has been slowly advancing through the decades, with First Class being set amid the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and Days of Future Past taking place in 1973.

Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hault will all return for the film, which will centre around an immortal supervillain from the comics called Apocalypse, with Patrick Stewart et al likely to feature in some capacity too.

"It will focus primarily on the First Class cast but it will certainly have some of the original cast involved too," Kinberg previously told The Daily Beast, before revealing the film's time setting in a podcast interview with Jeff Goldsmith.

Days of Future Past was dethroned from the top of the US box office by Disney Angelina Jolie-starrer Maleficent last week, but this is unlikely to bother 20th Century Fox with the sequel having already grossed half a billion dollars worldwide –beating all previous X-Men films despite it only being its second weekend in cinemas.