A single offhand comment from Ian McKellen has kicked Marvel speculation into high gear again, and this time it is not coming from a “leak account” or a blurry set photo. It came straight out of his own mouth during an interview with Jake’s Takes.
While looking back on the more practical stunt work from X-Men: The Last Stand, McKellen compared those days to how productions work now, then casually added: “I did destroy New Jersey the other day,” followed immediately by a “whoops” moment when he realized how it sounded.
Why That Line Matters Right Now
McKellen is back as Magneto, and Marvel has already started putting the classic X-Men cast front and center in the film’s marketing. A Patrick Stewart and Magneto chess scene has been a major talking point, and the recent teaser also put James Marsden in the spotlight with a bigger, more “comic-forward” Cyclops moment amid the wreckage of Xavier’s school.
So when McKellen mentions leveling a real-world location “the other day,” fans are naturally reading it as a potential story beat, not just a throwaway joke.
What “Destroying New Jersey” Could Actually Mean
There are a few ways to interpret it, and some are a lot less literal than the internet wants them to be.
1) It could be a real spoiler, but not the way it sounds.
Actors talk about their days on set like normal people. “Destroyed New Jersey” might just mean he filmed a sequence set in New Jersey, likely involving large-scale destruction, green screens, miniatures, or second unit work that he happened to be part of. That still counts as a spoiler in the casual sense, but it does not automatically mean the movie is doing a full-on “state gets wiped off the map” storyline.
2) It could tie into the multiverse problem Marvel keeps hinting at.
The MCU has been building toward the idea of universes colliding, usually discussed by fans under the “incursion” umbrella after it came up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If Doomsday is leaning hard into realities crashing together, “New Jersey” could be a consequence of that kind of collision, either in the main MCU or in the X-Men reality that McKellen’s Magneto comes from.
3) It could connect to the MCU’s New Jersey corner.
If the story swings through Jersey City territory, the immediate name that comes to mind is Kamala Khan. Marvel has also already used multiverse teases to bring mutants closer to the center, especially with the post-credits direction from The Marvels.
The most grounded answer is that McKellen probably revealed the setting of a big set piece, not the entire plot. But either way, it is the kind of detail Marvel would rather keep quiet until the movie is ready to sell itself on scale.
The One Thing We Do Know
Marvel is being pretty direct about the calendar: the studio has Robert Downey Jr. headlining as Doctor Doom, and the release date is locked for December 18, 2026.
Between now and then, every quote like this is going to get treated like a puzzle piece. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is just an actor realizing mid-sentence that he is about to make Marvel’s PR team very tired.
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