Stewart and McKellen not returning to X-Men

Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen. Photo / Getty Images

Everyone's favourite besties - Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen - won't reprise their mutant roles in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse.

Stewart confirmed the news in an interview with Larry King, according to Yahoo! Movies.

"I was learning quite a lot more about it last night, and it is going to be looking very much at the earlier lives of all our characters," Stewart said.

"And so I don't think we'll be making an appearance."

Patrick Stewart as Professor X.

Stewart plays telepath Professor X in the franchise, while McKellen is the metal-controlling Magneto.

Onscreen, they're not always on the same side, but offscreen, the pair are close friends - they delighted fans last year by taking cute tourist photographs around New York City as they neared the end of their run on a Broadway show.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, Professor X and Magneto will be played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who starred as the younger versions of the mutants in X-Men: First Class and in X-Men: Days of Future Past (which thanks to a time-travelling storyline also starred Stewart and McKellen).

Auctioning our Coney souvenir T-shirts to benefit @CityHarvest #gogodididonyc Take a look! http://t.co/pmkEwTGWpk pic.twitter.com/kUzXqO2tnu

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 24, 2014

It doesn't mean Stewart and McKellen, who were in the first three X-Men films, won't ever return.

With Channing Tatum set to star in a Gambit spin-off, Ryan Reynolds finally getting his Deadpool spin-off, and the added potential of more X-Men sequels, we could see the first generation mutants back on the screen in the future.

- AAP