X-Men Movies Thread

[Dacey]

Because they are still X-Men films with X-Men characters in them, even though they more or less exist in "their own universe."

[EricJ]

Since rumors suspect Fox needed the 21st/Christmas slot to "compete" with Sony's Spider-Verse movie, by releasing...(drumroll)...a PG-13 re-release cut of Deadpool 2! Now kid-friendly!
(All we have is an untitled Fox slot and an ambiguously ironic Ryan Reynolds Tweet to go by, but the motive and circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.)

And now we have details that Reynolds' Tweet wasn't ironic, and Fox's strategic last-ditch PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2 actually WILL be a "Princess Bride story-time parody":
https://therealstanlee.com/entertainmen ... ext-month/

It's only a limited-time stunt, as Fox has already learned Disney's lessons about theatrical re-releases in the Blu-ray era.

[ShyViolet]

Wow...seriously, Dark Phoenix just can’t catch a break...


https://cosmicbook.news/disney-fox-deal ... rk-phoenix

[Ben]

You know...Apocalypse really didn’t do the series any favors. It’s a shame this didn’t happen in its place and maybe finish that run off properly. (Then again, I’m pleased with Logan basically ending the original line, frankly. The closer the First Class cast came to catching the OT cast up the less things made sense...even before the X-Films complicated timelines!)

[Dacey]

Dark Phoenix looks pretty much like a remake of a storyline X-Men 3 already did, and it looks like it's more or less doing it in the exact same way, for a character audiences aren't nearly as invested in as they were for the original trilogy (she was only introduced in the last film in this case).

But the buzz is terrible from test screenings, with multiple reports claiming its getting 2015 level "Fant4stic" bad audience scores.

[Randall]

I'm so ready for the MCU reboot.

[Dacey]

It's probably been discussed in this thread by now, but could mutants be brought into the MCU at this point outside of maybe the big ones like Wolverine?

I mean, the whole concept of the X-Men is "they're persecuted because they're different." something that would be hard to do in the MCU where those with powers are celebrated and embraced.

[ShyViolet]

Oh wow...2015 F4 levels??? That’s even worse than I thought!


And yeah, there was this story from the British movie site Metro about a year back that quoted an apparently legit forum user who’d said that *mild spoiler*

he’d just seen an early preview of the film, and that Last Stand scenes were reproduced nearly EXACTLY as they had been shot about 15 years back.

Here’s the original article from Metro: (Warning: many other spoilers, although I guess circumstances might have changed since then.)

https://metro.co.uk/2018/05/29/x-men-da ... r-7586131/


Hmm, interesting point Dacey. The X-universe that began in July 2000 certainly DOES seem to come from a very different place narrative-wise than the MCU.

(Also, I've always thought it was quite ironic that X1 was all about acceptance and tolerance when it came to mutants, and yet the film’s tagline was “Trust a few...fear the rest.” (Well I guess the fact that the whole theme/metaphor of persecution and understanding was completely new to superhero films back then had something to do with it.)

[Randall]

The X-Men comics take place in the same continuity as Avengers, etc. so I don't see a problem. The whole "they're different!" thing would possibly have to be de-emphasized some, but being born a mutant is still a different flavour than having accident-induced or created powers.

Besides, I'm more than ready for a different take on the X-Men at this point.

[Ben]

The whole MCU is about to get rebooted, so they can introduce mutants when and however they want...

[EricJ]

The whole MCU is about to get rebooted, so they can introduce mutants when and however they want...

But, have a feeling they'll do a Spiderman, assume everyone already knows the X-canon, and that folks won't be surprised when a new actor stays in character as Wolverine.
Not that there's much they can do with him at this point, but if Disney had been able to use any of Fox's X-canon, "Big Hero 6" would have been that much better a movie.

At this point, though it's academic: Disney's Marvel is facing Life After Thanos, which is a combination of Harry Potter's "Life After Voldemort" (which didn't work out so well), and the Star Wars: Last Jedi factor of "Did 'Captain Marvel' permanently stink up the playing field for any post-Avengers Marvel, like the ghost of Rian Johnson killed 'Solo'?"
I'm more interested in how Disney's Fox Deal affects the old Fox classics, as whatever happens with Disney, SW and Marvel from here on in is like closing the barn door after the horses were shot.

[Ben]

Well by no means do I accept that in terms of Marvel. Feige has everything mapped out and knows the direction of the MCU for the next decade, no matter what marketing will have us believe for Endgame.

It’s Star Wars that had no plan after ripping up the Lucas playboook and...um...not replacing it with any solid plan, leaving each new film to find its own way...with quickly diminishing results...

[Randall]

Yeah, I don't see any correlation either. Captain Marvel, anyhow, is a popular hit, so I don't see any "stink" at all.

Don't worry, Marvel has this. And Disney knows enough to leave them relatively alone. Feige has plenty of classic Marvel tales he can go to for inspiration, and he's done an admirable job of guiding things so far. I'm sure the seeds for the next phase have already been planted. (Kree-Skrull War, anyone? How about an FF reboot with FF vs. Skrulls to set things in motion? So many possibilities.)

I got the lovely Infinity War poster a few months ago, but needed to replace another poster on my wall. Guess what went, after many years on my wall? Star Wars. The MCU is in ascendancy, and Star Wars in on its way down at this point.

[Ben]

Ouch!

[ShyViolet]

Oh jeez...I kinda figured.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/04/kevin ... 202057131/


The truth is, I always had this feeling, before and after the Fox merger, that Disney really wasn’t all that interested in acquiring X-Men to begin with. (Especially because the comic book was being buried by Marvel for so long, since only Fox had the movie rights.). I really think Disney mostly just wanted Venom, Gambit and Deadpool. (Although maybe not Gambit since that movie’s been in development hell for like six years! )

Basically, the X-Men franchise comes with a whole Pandora’s Box of potential issues:

1.). Themes and metaphors for discrimination and racism used so often in these films might be a cause for increased volatility during these more socially/politically tense times.

2.). At the same time, those issues have already been done to death with this franchise, and Hollywood writers might simply be out of ideas anyway (hence all the strong rumors of Phoenix repeating stuff from other X-films.)

3.). The appalling lack of narrative continuity within the film series, where the second prequel was supposed to fix the problems created by the third sequel and....just sort of made things worse. As said, the logical thing to do is to completely reboot the entire franchise, start from a clean slate, and then slowly integrate the characters into the MCU. But doing this would no doubt take huge amounts of time and effort (as well as trial and error) on the part of the filmmakers, and all to revive a franchise with a film that bombed not three years ago, and another film that was pushed back so many times it’s almost certain that it WILL bomb. It does not bode well.


4.) When Bryan singer was sued for sexual assault in 2014, the MeToo movement hadn’t started yet. So in the end, even with all the mounting evidence, he got off relatively easy (instead of going to jail, I think there was a settlement of some sort, and he still got to direct Apocalypse.) But now, with Singer’s conduct (and the end of his career) being much more public than five years ago, I think Disney REALLY wants to distance themselves from this former director, who, even though he never worked for Disney, directed four out of the nine films of this franchise. (Heck, look at all the trouble they got into back in 1995 when it was found out that the family movie Powder (starring Jeff Goldblum) was actually directed by a convicted child molester. (They only found out when the movie came out.)


So basically, in my opinion, even though legally they have all the rights to X-Men, I don’t think Disney even wants to touch this franchise. It’s basically a liability for them, nothing more. This is just my opinion, though.