Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently sat down to talk the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Variety’s Kris Tapley on their Playback Podcast. While discussing the recent past in Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, Feige also provided a big update on the potential inclusion of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Feige told Tapley it’s possible he and Marvel Studios could begin working on the X-Men and the Fantastic Four in the next six months.
“We’ve been told it’s looking very, very good and could happen in the first six months of next year. The notion of the characters coming back is great. It’s nice when a company that created all these characters can have access to all those characters. It’s unusual not to. But in terms of actually thinking about it and actually planning things, we haven’t started that yet.”
The X-Men and Fantastic Four’s film rights had previously been held by Fox, but with the recent acquisition of a number of Fox properties, Disney and Marvel Studios will have access to the X-Men and Fantastic Four again. This means it’s more than likely we will see Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, Professor X, Doctor Doom, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the Fantastic Four along with many others showing up alongside Thor, Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy very shortly.
While this is great news for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it might not be great news for the actors who are currently portraying the X-Men on the big screen. In fact, Fox is planning on putting out at least two X-Men based films in X-Men: Dark Phoenix and New Mutants.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the continuation of Fox’s most recent team of X-Men to grace the big screen. The team debuted in X-Men: First Class and featured Magneto, Charles Xavier, Mystique, Beast, Banshee, Darwin, and Havok. The team has already gone through a number of changes. The team that will appear in Dark Phoenix consists of Magneto, Professor X, Mystique, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, Quicksilver.
It’s more than likely that if Feige and his team decide to bring the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they will recast these iconic characters.
However, it’s possible Feige and X-Men producer and the director of Dark Phoenix Simon Kinberg have been working together to bring the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe already.
Kinberg spoke to CinePop last month where he revealed Dark Phoenix might actually be the beginning of a whole new era for the X-Men.
“I see it as a new chapter. I see it as taking the franchise in a different direction tonally. And that doesn’t mean that the next one will have the same tone, it just means that the next one can have a different tone. I think for many years, the X-Men, Bryan [Singer] really transformed the superhero genre in 2000 or 2001 when the first one came out. That’s almost 20 years ago. It is a long time ago. And at that time, superhero movies were not wildly popular, actually. There had been a few failures in the mid-90s, and there hadn’t been a lot of superhero movies, if any, around that time and X-Men sort of was revolutionary in its moment. But that was 20 years ago and I think, I really felt like it time to really change the look, the feel, the tone, the vibe of these movies. And that doesn’t mean this is the one going forward, it just means that if it’s me or whoever directs the next one, you can make it different, and you have to make it different.”
We’ve theorized here before that Dark Phoenix and Captain Marvel could be connected due to the idea that the Skrulls would be showing up in both movies. It’s quite possible that we might see the X-Men show up at the end of Avengers: Endgame in a post-credits scene.
Not only does the inclusion of the Skrulls hint at the X-Men joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the film has seen its release date pushed back multiple times. In fact, the film will now release in June after Avengers: Endgame comes to theaters in April.
The June release date for Dark Phoenix also coincides with Feige’s hopes of beginning work on the X-Men in the next six months. Could Kinberg’s idea of a new chapter for the X-Men mean they will be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
What do you think? Will the X-Men show up in Avengers: Endgame. Could X-Men: Dark Phoenix be the movie that sees the X-Men join the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Or do you think it’s all a little too fast and we are grasping for straws?