Fox's X-Men franchise may be in its whopping 18th year of existence, but the long standing property seems to be in flux at the moment. Fox recently delayed a gaggle of movies including Dark Phoenix, and the pending merger with Disney makes the future all the more unclear. Disney's bid on 20th Century Fox has the potential to bring the X-Men and Deadpool into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper, finally uniting most Marvel characters in one shared universe. But how will this affect the upcoming movies like The New Mutants? Long standing X-Men producer Simon Kinberg recently addressed just this, saying:
The status [of the deal] I won't speak to because that's above my pay grade, but we're just continuing to make movies that we make and developing movies that we've been developing for years now, like Gambit, or finishing movies like New Mutants and Dark Phoenix and Deadpool, that comes out this Christmas, and others, Multiple Man, other movies we've been working on we continue to work on.
Well, this is interesting. While crossovers and universe-altering change seem like an inevitability, Simon Kinberg and the folks at the X-Men franchise are just continuing the work on previously announced projects. As for the future, your guess is as certain as ours.
Simon Kinberg's comments to Collider are sure to be a relief to the hardcore X-Men fandom, who may be nervous about the current state of the franchise. While everyone's favorite mutants have never been closer to joining the greater MCU, the current slate of movies have seen a fair amount of set backs. Just one day after releasing the trailer for Dark Phoenix, the movie ended up being pushed back a number of months. Also on hold is Channing Tatum's Gambit, and The New Mutants had previously been delayed after releasing an epic trailer of its own.
But despite these setbacks and the need for extensive reshoots in both Dark Phoenix and New Mutants, 20th Century Fox and the powers that be in X-Men land are still moving forward with its set of future blockbusters. Aside from the projects that are already in the can, Simon Kinberg also maintains that both Gambit and Multiple Man are still in development. Gambit has Channing Tatum attached, and has been pushed back a handful of times already. Multiple Man has been a bit more of a mystery, but James Franco is reportedly playing the lead, in a film that may end up being rated R. We'll just have to see how things continue to develop over at Fox.
The next installment in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise is Dark Phoenix, which was recently pushed back to June 7, 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
