Skip to main content

Here’s how Quicksilver’s awesome X-Men: Apocalypse rescue was created

Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse arrived in theaters over the weekend, and the follow-up to 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past brings back one of that film’s standout characters in Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, a mutant with super speed whose ability makes for some of the franchise’s most impressive action sequences.

After playing a supporting role in Days of Future Past, Quicksilver plays a more prominent part in Apocalypse and steals the show yet again with another fantastic sequence that showcases his incredible speed (and sense of humor). A new video released by 20th Century Fox offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the wild scene that takes everything audiences loved about the “Time in a Bottle” sequence in Days of Future Past and shifts it into an even higher gear.

Of course, if you haven’t seen X-Men: Apocalypse yet and want to avoid spoilers, you’ll probably want to stop here — but if you have seen the film and (like us) are wondering how that Quicksilver scene was made, read on and watch the video.

And now that we’ve got the spoiler warning out of the way …

In the scene featured in the video, Quicksilver finds himself evacuating Charles Xavier’s school full of mutants as an explosion destroys the entire building. Peters’ character goes room to room, floor by floor, removing students from the building as the inferno slowly creeps through the structure. Much like in the Days of Future Past sequence, time has essentially stopped around Quicksilver, who’s able to step on flying debris, run around the walls of the room, and make ever-so-slight adjustments to objects and their trajectories that yield big results when he finally slows down.

To create Quicksilver’s “Extraction” sequence for the film, Singer and his team used special cameras propelled along tracks at almost 90 miles per hour through the mansion set. The cameras filmed at a rate of 3,000 frames per second, allowing the team to add Quicksilver and his acrobatic movements to scenes that took only an instant to occur in the real world, but spanned more than 15 seconds on the screen.

Directed by Singer, X-Men: Apocalypse is in theaters now.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
7 things we hope to see in X-Men ’97 season 2
Rogue stands in front of the X-Men in X-Men '97.

It's only aired for one season, but X-Men '97 has already joined the ranks of Marvel Studios' best projects in recent years. Featuring Madelyne Pryor's reign as the Goblin Queen, Storm losing her powers, the destruction of Genosha, and the death of Gambit, this season revived and rebuilt the series to reinvigorate the X-Men and Marvel Universe as a whole.

Overall, the series blew away fans and newcomers alike, and audiences would very much like to see these seven things in season 2.
Madelyne Pryor returns

Read more
X-Men ’97 shows that Marvel and the MCU are moving in the right direction
The X-Men pose in "X-Men '97."

This spring, there have been three streaming series that have broken through the pop culture clutter and become "water cooler shows" -- shows that are discussed obsessively across social media platforms like X and TikTok and, yes, even the last remaining water coolers left in offices across the world. The first two -- Shōgun and Baby Reindeer -- were mild surprises; after all, how many historical epics set in feudal Japan and shows about male sexual trauma have topped the Nielsen viewing charts?

But the third popular water cooler show of spring 2024 is perhaps the most surprising: X-Men '97, a revival of a beloved 1990s animated series that had mixed-to-negative press before its premiere on March 20. What could the show be but yet another easy attempt to cash in on Gen-X nostalgia? The recently canceled reboot of Willow, plus the endless stream of increasingly mediocre live-action remakes of modern Disney animated classics like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, set the bar pretty low, and with it, viewers' expectations.

Read more
7 best X-Men: The Animated Series episodes, ranked
The X-Men and Magneto look on as Professor X departs in X-Men: The Animated Series.

Earlier this month, Disney+ debuted X-Men '97, an official continuation of the fan-favorite cartoon X-Men: The Animated Series. After only two episodes, X-Men '97 has reminded viewers why they loved Marvel's mutant heroes in the first place. The original series was produced in 1992 for Fox Kids' Saturday morning lineup, and it was the first time that Marvel had a show that took its characters and stories seriously. X-Men: The Animated Series depicted a world where the heroes were hated and feared simply because they were born with superhuman abilities. That powerful allegory helped X-Men become a top-selling comic book series before it became a franchise in Hollywood.

Now that X-Men '97 has reignited the X-Men fandom, we're taking a look back at the seven best X-Men: The Animated Series episodes. Although for the purposes of this list, multipart episodes are being counted as a single story.
7. Days of Future Past

Read more