Thomas Roach on whether the X-Men franchise should be rebooted after X-Men: Apocalypse…
The X-Men franchise is longest running of all the current comic book movie franchises. It debuted in 200o with X-Men and went though 2009 with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Fox then apparently looked at rebooting the franchise with X-Men: First Class but the events of that film remained canon. The sequel to First Class was X-Men: Days of Future Past which brought both the young cast and older cast together, firmly cementing both sets of characters as existing in the same universe.
The next film to be released will be X-Men: Apocalypse, which will follow the younger cast as they take on the villain Apocalypse in 1983. X-Men: Apocalypse seems to be bridging the gap between the original trilogy and the latest films. This would be a nice way to round of the series before a reboot. By the time that X-Men Apocalypse is released the franchise will have existed for 16 years. Other comic books have rebooted since then including Spider-Man and Batman. As of yet we are unsure of what will happen with X-Men, but we can assume that they will keep going.
Fox owns the rights to the X-Men characters and will not be willing to let to them go, but it would also seem that the studio is unwilling to reboot. After the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has all its characters existing together and meeting up, Fox will likely want to do the same. As the latest X-Men films are canon to the original trilogy it seems to be a waste of an opportunity to reboot the franchise. First Class could have been a reboot and we could have got to see the younger versions of the characters tackle famous stories from the comics. Instead we get these films that are doing time jumps every 10 years, taking away so much potential for expanding the universe. After Apocalypse, time jumps may be a of a great deal less time, but still between First Class and Apocalypse 20 years of potential stories have been ignored.
A way that Fox may try to fix this gap is with spin offs ,but frankly those do not always turn out well. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was destroyed by both critics and fans, and although the more recent spin off The Wolverine did a great deal bette,r it left some fans disappointed. Clearly fans want to see X-Men movies and not standalone spin offs. There is already talk of another Wolverine movie, along with Deadpool, Gambit, Mystique and Cyclops spin offs. Personally the charm of the X-Men franchise for me comes from the ensemble cast of characters; sure there are many stand out characters, but their interaction within the parameters of such a rich roster is so much more appealing than any single character.
Maybe the new cast would not be needed for future films. After Days of Future Past many of the original cast have expressed an interest to return to the series. With the time travel element of Days of Future Past erasing a great deal of the original trilogy, seeing the original cast take on new stories may be an option. I did enjoy seeing Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen and Halle Berry all return. Even the brief return of Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden and Famke Janssen was cool. Maybe these cast members could return to a film set in a more modern time. Because of the time jumps between the most recent films I could see the original cast all reprising their roles for another film or two, even if this just prolongs a reboot for a couple of years after X-Men: Apocalypse.
Many fans would also like the rights to return to marvel in order for the X-Men to exist in the Cinematic Universe. Whilst some would be okay with seeing the cast members from the Fox’s X-Men universe play the roles, Marvel would not likely allow it as they would want to reboot the series in their own image and style that would have a better fit into what they have created so far. Frankly though if a reboot is to happen it will be at Fox. X-Men has made a lot of money for them and will continue to do so. I also don’t think Marvel is too bothered about incorporating the X-Men into their Cinematic Universe at all.
Overall I am very glad that we got essentially a new trilogy of X-Men films which were connected to their predecessor,s however I would like the franchise to go out on a high. I think that after we see Apocalypse as a villain then any future villain will be hard to top. Maybe a reboot could delve more into Magneto as the enemy once again and explore that. I would be happy for Fox to continue making films with the current cast and the original cast, but I don’t think all of these actors will want to keep doing a film for the franchise every couple of years for the next decade and beyond.
Would you like to see X-Men rebooted after Apocalypse or do you want to see the current franchise continue? Let us know…
Thomas Roach
Originally published September 20, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
