James McAvoy reveals that his favorite X-Men film is "a toss-up between First Class & Days of Future Past"

X-Men are set to appear in the next big thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is Avengers: Doomsday, as it was announced in an hours-long cast reveal previously. However, not every actor from the popular film series is appearing. They might be in case this was only half the cast.

Among the actors missing names in the upcoming MCU film cast is James McAvoy, who recently appeared in an interview with Josh Horowitz, where he talked about the mutant-filled films. When discussing his favorite films in the franchise, he said that,

"I go back and forth. It's a toss-up between First Class and Days of Future Past. I feel First Class sort of tried to do quite different and do a different kind of tonal approach, which I thought was really cool. And then Days of Future Past kind of went more, sort of, classic. But it just did it so so well."

Both films went on to become among the best movies in the franchise, though only Days of Future Past (2014) managed to become a box office success of the two.

Audiences and critics can tell which of the two X-Men films is better

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine in Days of Future Past. (Image via Marvel Entertainment)

Maybe James McAvoy isn't able to tell which of them is his favorite, which would also mean which of the two is better, according to him. Worry not. Critics and audiences loved it, and the scores tell us which of them was better.

As of this writing, Days of Future Past has a better score at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, holding a 90% rating on the Tomatometer and 91% on the Popcornmeter. First Class (2011) has a slightly lower score, an 86% on the Tomatometer and an 87% on the Popcornmeter.

Interestingly, X-Men: First Class was supposed to be a reboot of the original franchise, where Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen led the mutants as Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto, respectively. These characters were replaced by James McAvoy (Charles Xavier) and Michael Fassbender (Magneto) in the films.

However, with Days of Future Past, First Class was retconned into a prequel to the first X-Men film. Both the younger and older versions of Professor X and Magneto appeared in the 2014 film, while also bringing back Hugh Jackman's Logan, aka Wolverine.

How was James McAvoy's version of Professor X different from Sir Patrick Stewart's?

Both James McAvoy and Sir Patrick Stewart appears in Days of Future Past. (Image via Marvel Entertainment)

Both versions of Professor X had a different kind of personality in the X-Men films, which James McAvoy described in his own words during an interview with IGN. He said that,

"For me, Charles Xavier is a monk. He's like a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality. And getting to kind of go, 'Alright, well he's got to be different from that.' It's quite fun because the complete opposite of that is an ego-fuelled, sexed up self-serving dude. And not going too far with it, but he's definitely got an ego and he's definitely got a sex drive as well."

James McAvoy last appeared as the character in 2019's Dark Phoenix, while Sir Patrick Stewart appeared as a version of Professor X from Earth-838 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). He is also set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, though we can't say if that will be a version from a different Earth or the one we saw in the original X-Men films.