The Marvel Cinematic Universe appears to be preparing for the debut of the X-Men, as a new report indicates that the reboot of the iconic franchise is currently in development. It has been reported that Marvel Studios has started developing a new X-Men movie that might be called The Mutants.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is well known to be at the start of its biggest expansion to date with its Phase Four. This is kicking off with the highly anticipated season finale of WandaVision before five more Disney+ shows and four full-length movies arrive in 2021.
While there hasn’t been any confirmation on future plans regarding the X-Men, reports suggest that Kevin Feige has some plans to instill fresh life since Walt Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019. Fox itself acquired the X-Men rights from Marvel Comics in the early-to-mid 1990s, and began its own franchise of Mutant-centric Marvel films in 2000.
Without an official announcement on the first MCU X-Men movie, fans have been left wondering when the mutants will join the larger universe. Feige has said in the past that they are figuring out the plan to incorporate mutants in the MCU.
With Marvel Studios reportedly making progress on the new X-Men film, the part of the report that will likely surprise many is the movie’s title. However, the decision to potentially not refer to the team as X-Men could stem from the name not being as inclusive. Marvel Studios EVP of production Victoria Alonso said in 2019 that she felt the X-Men name was outdated since there are so many women members.
Feige has been teasing the X-Men’s MCU debut for a while, name dropping The Mutants and The Fantastic Four during the Marvel Studios panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego in 2019. He said mutants twice but didn’t say “X-Men” at all. That could be a coincidence, but the MCU could also refrain from using the iconic mutant superteam name.
It is even possible that The Mutants will receive this title because it tells a story about mutants in general and not specifically the X-Men. This could allow the MCU to introduce or expand the concept of mutants in a single movie with the primary purpose of rebooting the idea of mutants.
2022 has a confirmed a dozen of new entries as well, and after that, the MCU’s future becomes just the slightest bit more uncertain. Thankfully, fans are aware of two more major projects on the way in 2023 or later, with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and Jon Watts moving from Spider-Man: No Way Home into Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four starring Marvel’s First Family.
If reports of The Mutants’ development are legitimate, however, it will actually be the second major Marvel Studios project hailing from the X-Men mythos. Feige recently confirmed that Disney and Marvel Studios were working on Deadpool 3, an R-rated continuation of Fox’s popular X-Men spinoff duology starring Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson. Other members of Fox’s X-Men franchise have been involved in the MCU, namely actor Evan Peters, who “reprised” his X-Men movie role as Quicksilver for Marvel Studios’ debut Disney+ series WandaVision.
Feige has only mentioned the mutants in passing over the past couple of years since the Fox/Disney merger. Although their inclusion in the MCU was always assumed to happen, nothing official has been put out into the world until now.