Finishing The Wolverine panel, Hugh Jackman makes a plea: "One of the great things about being in a movie like this is the chance to do other things, and particularly being able to do smaller more indie movies, and I'd like to introduce you to the director of a film I've got coming up. It's a small movie, won't take long, hopefully Fox won't mind. Ladies and gentlemen, Bryan Singer!"
A surprise panel for X-Men: Days Of Future Past!
And as it turns out, quite a big one. Says Singer: "It's been like a decade. It's been a great journey making X-Men: Days Of Future Past in Montreal. None of the visual effects are complete and we still have a month of shooting to go, but I've put together a little bit of footage."
The big news? It's Wolverine who goes back in time to his younger body and has to convince the younger Professor X and Magneto to team up and change the future. "You will do for me what I once did for you. Logan, I was a very different man. Guide me. Have patience with me," says Stewart. "Patience isn't my strong suit," says Logan.
We see a shaggy haired Professor X in his wheelchair, looking defeated. Magneto seems to be in an art gallery, and there are scenes of riots in the streets of London. Richard Nixon seems worried, there's a panic room under the White House and Wolverine gets shot repeatedly in the chest.
In the future, the world looks bombed out, the sky blackened, and the straits desperate. Storm, Magneto, Professor X, Rogue, Ice Man and Kitty Pryde seem to be hiding in ruins underground, and the spot where they send a grey-tipped Wolverine back looks almost like a sacrificial altar.
Finally, there's a shot of old Xavier and young Xavier nose-to-nose (in some kind of mind-space? Physically? It's not clear). "Please", begs Stewart of his embittered younger self, "we need you to hope again."
"This is a long table," notes Singer. There are a couple of "writers and producers" who might join us. So here's Simon Kinberg, Lauren Shuler Donner, Hutch Parker, Omar Sy, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult and Evan Peters.
"My name is Peter Dinklage and I play Bolivar Trask," says Dinklage simply. Evan Peters says his Quicksilver is "a bit of a spaz" as well as being fast. "He talks fast, moves fast, and everyone is very slow compared to him. He's like always waiting for the guy at the ATM in front to finish." Singer adds, "Quicksilver was always a part of this as we were developing it, but it took a while to find the right actor for the role."
"He's got very good genes," says Fassbender. What does Quicksilver wear? "Hideous '70s clothes." "Wow, wow, wow!" says McAvoy. "I look incredible in this movie."
Jennifer Lawrence says of Mystique: "She's definitely starting to find her journey to the Rebecca Romijn, later Mystique, that we know. She's still close to Charles - not geographically; she hasn't seen him in a long time."
"This is an embarrassment of riches," says Jackman. "To work with people from the very first film I ever did, and then to work with these new people, it's incredible."
"It's great to be in California, especially now you've repealed Proposition 8," says McKellen. "Now I'm looking for a husband... It's nice to meet you Michael [Fassbender]."
There are three Oscar winners on the panel, all women: Berry, Lawrence and Paquin. "What I love about Storm is that she's like the Earth mother of the group, but she's also a badass when she needs to be. What I hate about Storm is she never gets any love! I mean what's up with Storm? You probably know more about the comic than me - is she asexual and nobody's told me? But I love her: when i got the call it didn't take me a half second to say that I'm in."
For Iceman, Ashmore says, "I think there's going to be some really cool stuff that people don't expect to see, and that they've been possibly waiting to see from these characters."
Sy says, "I play Bishop. He's a guy from the future. He fights for survival, like all of us."
"Being true to the original comics is what's important for us," says Kinberg. "It's about trying to honour those as best we can." "It's only because the comics were written so well that we can spin these stories," says Shuler Donner.
"Look at this panel, the chance to work with not only people I've worked with before but the ensemble in the past, and all for the man who gave me my first job. Every day I'm grateful," says Jackman, who claims that he walked around town today in his full costume and prompted only comments of "Not bad" and "Way too tall!"
X-Men: Days Of Future Past is out in the US on May 23.