An X-MEN Movie Franchise "Reset" Seems to be Coming at Fox and it Needs to Start With Finding a New Writer and Director
Editorial -- There's no doubt that X-MEN (2000) helped jumpstart the comic book movie phenomenon after BLADE (1998) kicked open the door for what is now considered the Golden Age of comic book movies. This was back before Marvel Studios was even an entity and before they kicked off their shared universe franchises with IRON MAN in 2008. In fact, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was an assistant producer on X-MEN and his beginnings in the business with 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise is what helped him develop into the powerhouse Hollywood executive he is right now.
After X-MEN came X2: X-MEN UNITED which was followed by the critically panned X-MEN: THE LAST STAND. A few years after the franchise got a "soft reboot" with younger cast members in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. First Class re-energized the franchise after The Last Stand. The follow-up to First Class, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, became the highest grossing X-Men ensemble franchise movie for the studio. Unfortunately, this summer's X-MEN: APOCALYPSE was both the end of the younger roster's 3-film contract commitment as well as a step back with a subpar story and making less box office cash than the previous film.
Now, Fox is looking at an X-Men crossroads as its younger cast all need to re-negotiate their contracts (read: they'll get big, big cash) if the studio and actors want to return for more films. But there's also the issue of where the story can go.
Headliner Hugh Jackman is done as Wolverine in next year's LOGAN solo movie and Fox seems ready to reboot the character in female form as the Wolverine clone X-23. GAMBIT is stuck in development purgatory after losing two directors within a year. X-FORCE is in limbo ever since it lost its main villain, Apocalypse, to the X-Men movie with the villain's name in its title. THE NEW MUTANTS seems to be moving ahead and could begin filming at some point in 2017. Meanwhile, DEADPOOL is Fox's hottest Marvel movie property and it too has hit a snag losing the sequel's director even though they've reportedly found a replacement with the director of JOHN WICK. The Hollywood Reporter even claims Fox is already thinking ahead about DEADPOOL 3 and DEADPOOL 2 looks to be beginning pre-production and filming in early 2017.
This leaves the X-Men franchise in a state of nothingness at the moment. According to a new story on THR, the studio is preparing to hit the reset button on the X-Men movies (again).
"Elsewhere, the reset button has been pressed [on the X-Men franchise]. Sources say the flagship series will be reconfigured, with Simon Kinberg, overseer of the franchise as producer and writer, working on a new script. Singer, who directed four X-Men movies, will not be returning, according to insiders, but the script is being written with Lawrence, Fassbender and McAvoy optimistically in mind."
No disrespect to producer and writer Simon Kinberg but his script for X-MEN: APOCALYPSE was terribly boring and off-the-mark once we got into Act II and III. After bringing fans the one X-Men villain they've been dying for so long to see on the big screen, it was a big failure of capturing the true essence of Apocalypse's character in the movie. Because of this it seems like it's time for Fox to tell Kinberg he needs to step off as writer and bring in a new writer, or writers, to tackle this "reset" to the X-Men franchise. These new writer(s) need to also be familiar with the source material because it is time to pull from the comics more than Fox has done in the past with the X-Men films.
DEADPOOL stayed closer to the comics than any other of Fox's Marvel films and it nearly made $800 million worldwide. That's an obvious hint that fans love sticking closer to the source material in these super hero movie adaptations.
The X-Men are about family and dealing with being minorities in society due to their mutant abilities and this was lost in Apocalypse. Where the fault really lies is truly unknown but you have to point a finger directly at Kinberg since a movie is only as good as its script and he wrote it. He struck out when it came to Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen debuting in a movie as well as making the stakes way too big for a team who shines when the stakes are smaller and more personal.
It's sounding like longtime X-Men director Bryan Singer may not be directing the next X-Men movie which is a great starting point to "reset" the franchise. There is a reason why so many fans really enjoyed X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, regardless of its flaws, and two of the biggest reasons are that Kinberg wasn't writing and Singer wasn't directing. There were new takes and eyes on the franchise and that's what brought the X-Men franchise back for its second trilogy of movies.
A new writer and new director both sound like a great starting point to "reset" the franchise... again. Unless Fox is secretly thinking about partnering up with Marvel Studios to bring the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, sadly, this possibility was recently shot down by Marvel Studios' Feige last month.
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