Brave bid to break jinx

[Photo provided to China Daily]

The fear and desperation on Nightcrawler's face portrays a victim's feelings in a society that excludes him.

Weaving real history into a fictional tale is another feature that makes the X-Men movies different from other comic-adapted films.

The movie X-Men (2000) began with scenes in the World War II Auschwitz concentration camp, and X-Men: First Class (2011) was set in the 1960s during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The latest film has a background based on the Cold War and nuclear threats.

Speaking of the film's appeal, Singer says: "It (the movie) is not only for fans, but also for people who've never seen X-Men films before."

For die-hard fans, the movie has elements to draw them to theaters.

For instance, Quicksilver, who has the ability to move at great speed, will reveal his relationship with Magneto in the movie.

Sharing his experience of acting in the film, Peters, who plays Quicksilver, says: "This movie is more like the first X-Men movie for me, as in the last one I sort acted like a guest star."

Elaborating on his role, he says: "Quicksilver (in the movie) tries to connect with his estranged father. But Magneto has experienced something terrible, which makes him turn bad. And Quicksilver wants to help his father see the light."

Speaking of the technical challenges encountered during filming, Peters says that as his character moves at superfast speeds in the film, the crew took more than one month to shoot his sequences and did the filming at 3,000 frames per second.

But the sequences in the movie last for only two and a half minutes.

Before this, the record for frames per second was held by Ang Lee's military drama, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which was shot at the frame rate of 120 frames per second.

Giving more details of the shoot, Peters says it was challenging and very fun.

There were many green screens but also a beautiful set, he says.

Singer says he used Simul-Cam technology, which was first introduced by James Cameron in Avatar, to let actors see what would actually occur in the movie, though they were performing on a sound stage covered with green screens.

The 20-year-old actress Turner, who plays the young Jean Grey, also known as Phoenix, calls her role an "exciting" career opportunity.