The X-Men film series arguably received a fitting end earlier this year with Logan. But the blockbuster franchise was already in the midst of a reboot with a younger cast, and the mutant superheroes are far too valuable a property for 20th Century Fox to sit on the shelf for any length of time.
Last year’s X-Men: Apocalypse earned nearly $80 million less at the domestic box office than the previous film in the series, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and finished as one of the worst-grossing films in the franchise. Apocalypse did much better business internationally, earning 71 percent of its worldwide box office and finishing with the fourth-highest gross among X-Men movies. Yet it still drew $204 million less than Days of Future Past.
Despite that huge dip in revenues and Logan essentially stating the final word on the franchise, Fox is continuing to keep the machine churning. The enormous success of Deadpool last year ($783 million worldwide) gave the X-Men universe new life, even if the characters are only marginally connected. Maybe that provided a safe enough cushion for the studio to try and get it right by adapting the most famous story in X-Men comic book mythology, The Dark Phoenix Saga.
https://youtu.be/Q1G_UIf6JR8
As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Fox announced its release slate for the next three X-Men related films, each of which will hit theaters next year.
** New Mutants, following a separate, younger group of mutants also training at Charles Xavier’s school. The film will have more of a young adult vibe and is being directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) and is set for an April 13, 2018 release.
** Deadpool 2, which will feature time-traveling soldier Cable (Josh Brolin) and likely fuel a X-Force spinoff with a mutant special ops team, will hit theaters on June 1, 2018.
** The third will be X-Men: Dark Phoenix, scheduled to be released on Nov. 2, 2018.
As mentioned, the “Dark Phoenix” storyline is probably the most famous X-Men comic book story, in which telepath Jean Grey taps into a power that she can’t control and feeds on her darker impulses. That aspect of the character and future storyline was referenced in the climactic scene of X-Men: Apocalypse embedded above in which Jean (Sophie Turner) wipes out Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) by unleashing a wave of destructive power.
The original X-Men film trilogy took a crack at adapting the Dark Phoenix storyline in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand with that version of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) overwhelmed by the power within her and becoming an evil, catastrophic force. But it was only a subplot to a rather convoluted story that involved the government developing a “cure” for mutants. Though the X-Men films have never followed the comic book storylines closely, The Last Stand veered quite far from its source material.
Part of the problem was that director Bryan Singer left the third X-Men film during development to make Superman Returns instead. That left producers scrambling to find a replacement, and Brett Ratner wasn’t as familiar with the material as Singer. But after returning to the X-Men franchise, Singer is still thinking about the one he left behind. In an interview with Fandango’s Erik Davis, he admitted that he regrets not finishing the original X-Men movie trilogy.
“I like finishing things,” he says. “I like finishing this particular iteration. I know X-Men 3 was quite rushed and I didn’t complete it, and I felt a little like it was probably my responsibility to do that as a filmmaker, and I didn’t.”
However, thanks to the time-travel reboot that occurred in Days of Future Past, Singer and writer/producer Simon Kinberg reset the X-Men movie continuity and act like The Last Stand never happened. And apparently, they want to give the Dark Phoenix story another try, aiming to get it right the second time with a more focused script and the younger cast of X-Men that was introduced in Apocalypse.
No director has been chosen for X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Singer directed the last two X-Men films, but wants to take a producer role for the next one. Kinberg, who has been a producer on the X-Men series (film and TV) since 2011’s X-Men: First Class reportedly wants to direct the seventh X-Men film, but has never directed a movie before.
A first-time director would be risky for a big-budget, effects-driven blockbuster, even if he has plenty of experience with the franchise. And if Fox is hoping for a rebound after Apocalypse‘s disappointment, the studio might want a surer thing in the director’s chair.
The X-Men series seems like it should take a break and figure out where it really wants to go. The success of Deadpool gave the studio an opportunity to do so. But maybe Singer and Kinberg think they’ve figured that out now, especially when Fox is eager to keep its successful superhero property going. If they get this right, it could be one of the best X-Men films ever made. But with a rebooted franchise that’s become an unwieldy, convoluted mess, it’s hard to believe that will happen.
