At San Diego Comic-Con 2019, shortly after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased that the X-Men and Fantastic Four would be brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Fantastic Four is now slated on the upcoming Marvel movies calendar, there’s barely been any updates about the MCU’s X-Men reboot four years later. However, it looks like that may be changing soon, as the reboot is finally moving forward, which will, of course, eventually bring on a wave of casting rumors.
With the Writers Guild of America strike now concluded, Deadline reports that Marvel Studios will set up meetings later this fall to hear pitches for the MCU’s X-Men movie. The publication’s sources also mentioned that there is “no rush to fill the job” since the project doesn’t have a release date, and that it’s “more than likely” a writer won’t be selected until 2024. Once that happens though, that will be the first domino to tip over in the development process, which will then be followed by the announcement of a director, castings, etc.
Kicking off with 2000’s X-Men, Fox’s X-Men franchise ran for two decades, with the main film series wrapping up in 2019 with Dark Phoenix, and 2020’s The New Mutants putting a pin in this chapter of superhero movie history. Granted, Deadpool 3 will obviously be tied to the first two Fox-produced movies and even connect to other corners of Fox’s Marvel-verse (particularly by including Hugh Jackman as Wolverine), but it’s a Marvel Studios production, and as such be tied to the MCU as well. The X-Men reboot will be the first opportunity for these mutant superheroes to finally start with a fresh slate following their multiple decades of screen time under a different studio.
Even if a writer reveal is still a long ways off, it’s good to hear that the X-Men reboot is finally making progress rather than just lingering in limbo. Having said that, we have received a few mutant teases in the last several years. Both Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel and Tenoch Huerta’s Namor are both confirmed to be mutants in the MCU, and Patrick Stewart appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as Earth-838’s Professor X.
Additionally, Marvel Studios is also delivering X-Men ’97, a follow-up to the ‘90s X-Men animated series, to Disney+ subscribers sometime in 2024, though that’s not expected to be connected to the MCU mythology. Also keep in mind that even if the X-Men reboot is many years away from release, that’s not to say some of its leading or supporting characters couldn’t debut in other movies/TV shows first, like how Captain America: Civil War introduced Black Panther and Spider-Man ahead of their solo movies. In any case, fingers crossed that plenty of concrete updates concerning the next X-Men movie finally start trickling in over the course of 2024.
In the meantime, head to Disney+ to revisit some of the Fox-era X-Men movies and nearly all of the MCU’s stories. You can also look through the 2023 release schedule and 2024 release schedule and figure out which movies coming out in the near future catch your eye.
