20th Century Fox's X-Men: Apocalypse is shaping up to be one of 2016's most highly-anticipated movies, bringing the most current X-Men trilogy to a close, which started with X-Men: First Class and continuing with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Before that movie hits theaters, in just a few short weeks, the long-awaited X-Men spinoff Deadpool hits theaters on February 12. This R-rated adventure has already been confirmed as part of the X-Men franchise canon, along with the upcoming Gambit, which starts filming in March.

Since X-Men: Apocalypse is set in 1983 and both Deadpool and Gambit are set in present day, many have wondered if there will be any direct connections between X-Men: Apocalypse and any of these spinoffs, despite the 30-year time gap. JoBlo caught up with producer Simon Kinberg on the set last year, where he explained how exactly these spinoffs fit within the X-Men: Apocalypse timeline.

"Well this movie take space chronologically before those other films, so it's more like those films have to acknowledge this than we acknowledge Gambit, Deadpool, or Fantastic Four or anything else that exists within the sort of Fox/Marvel universe. But I work on all of those films in one capacity or another, either as a producer on all of them and as a writer on Fantastic Four and this movie, so I'm certainly aware of all the different stories we're telling at the same time, and they all are part of a larger fabric now, and so the world of Deadpool, the world of Gambit, exists in a post-X-Men: Days of Future Past post-X-Men: Apocalypse world where all of these stories are the same as our shared history. The same way that each of us of different ages knows about Nixon and knows about Reagan and knows about 9/11, our fictitious events like the stadium dropping on the White House in 1973 is part of the world in which Gambit, Deadpool, Wolverine 3 on forward exists."

X-Men: Apocalypse is set 10 years after X-Men: Days of Future Past, which essentially reset the timeline, showing a future scene at the end where beloved characters like Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) were resurrected and all seemed to be right with the world. Many fans assumed that X-Men: Apocalypse would eventually lead up to the original 2000 X-Men, but that isn't exactly the case. Here's what the producer had to say.

"It's not leading necessarily toward exactly where we found Patrick Stewart and the X-Men at the beginning of X-Men 1. There are some things that lead in that general direction, that was part of the philosophy we had at the end of Days of Future Past is that you can't fully change the course or current of the river, but you can just divert it a little bit, and we diverted it a little bit. So some things will be surprises; people could die that were alive in X-Men 1, 2 and 3, or people could survive that died during 1, 2 and 3. In terms of being difficult, I don't think it felt difficult because the world was more open, because it felt like we were still following the stories of our main characters. We imagine this like a trilogy of stories of Charles, Erik, Hank, and Raven and so we really were trying to tell what is the continuation and in some ways completion of their character arcs that we began in First Class, without thinking so much about how it links to the year 2000. It was really about these people who began in some ways as friends or strangers, became friends, became enemies, became lovers, became all of this-how do you complete that story and in some ways sort of bring the family back together in this film?"

Gambit is still technically set for an October 7, 2016 release date, but since it was recently confirmed that production won't begin until March, it seems likely that the studio will push this spinoff into 2017. Wolverine 3 is set for release on March 3, 2017, which will close out Hugh Jackman's legendary run as the title character. After that, 20th Century Fox is developing The New Mutants, and there have been rumors that Bryan Singer will be directing X-Men 7, which is reportedly set for 2018. What do you think about these new X-Men: Apocalypse details?