The X-Men have had a wild ride on the big screen. The franchise has already been essentially rebooted once already, and that’s expected to happen again with the characters' impending arrival in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There have been some bad movies in the series, but there have also been some excellent ones. One of the nearly universally beloved entries is X-Men: First Class, a movie that was originally conceived as a Magneto movie. Michael Fassbender recently talked about why he signed on to the project to play the younger Magneto.
X-Men: First Class turned back the clock and introduced younger versions of many of the popular characters. One of the most important, and most popular, was Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, who recently told Vanity Fair he was drawn to the role because of the character's conflict and motivations. Fassbender said…
What really drew me to that movie, X-Men: First Class and the character was this idea of an outsider and what it feels like you don't belong. That for me was an interesting core to work from for the character and to find the justifications in what his actions were, which again were pretty monumental. The lengths he was willing to go and what the motivation of that was. Essentially the core of that is that Magneto just needs a hug.
Magneto is one of the more popular comic book villains, in large part because a fair number of people agree with him. He ultimately rejects Professor X’s attempts for mutants and humans to co-exist, because he feels mutants are ultimately superior, and being a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, he understands what humans who hate are capable of and he doesn’t want to give them a chance to do the same thing to mutants.
Magneto’s stance is understandable, even if you don’t condone it, which makes the character a great deal more interesting than a comic book villain who is simply evil for its own sake or wants to take over the world. And maybe he just needs a hug, but he’s not likely to accept it from anybody willing to give it.
At this point, it seems Fassbender’s time as Megneto is probably over. It's unlikely we'll see him in any upcoming Marvel movies, but under the circumstances, we can’t be 100% sure of that. We’ve seen a couple of members of the Fox/X-Men franchise appear in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, including most recently in the mid-credits scene of The Marvels, and while we haven’t seen anybody from the First Class era yet, we can’t be sure it won’t happen.
Among the many rumors regarding Deadpool 3 cameos is that Ian McKellan will appear as his version of Magneto, and it’s not like the movie couldn’t contrive a reason to include the other actors as well, including Fassbender.
