Marvel Fast-Tracking X-Men Movie
Alex Gherzo | May 21, 2024 |
Marvel’s Merry Mutants are returning to the screen. Deadline exclusively reports that Marvel and Disney are developing a live-action X-Men movie, with Michael Lesslie in talks to write the script. No director or actors are attached, and it doesn’t even have a release date (which means it’s very early, although it’s promising that Disney is looking for a screenwriter before they announce the release date), but the X-Men film is being fast-tracked due to “the success of its animated series X-Men ’97.” (More on that nonsense below.) All of the previous live-action X-Men movies were produced by 20th Century Fox, with the final entry in that series being Dark Phoenix, a massive bomb. The first film from the X-Men section of the Marvel Universe produced under Disney, Deadpool & Wolverine, is coming in July (give or take a half-assed cameo).
Remember when this would have been fantastic news that had every Marvel fan salivating? I do, because it was only a few years ago. Now, everyone is wondering what they’re going to do to the X-Men to “modernize” them and make them more progressive and less fun. There have been rumblings for a while that the MCU X-Men films would focus on the female members of the team, which will surely prompt everyone at Disney and in the entertainment media to pretend that there were never women in an X-Men movie before. Also prepare for the onslaught of social media glue sniffers who rant and rave about how the X-Men were always about oppression, so anything woke Marvel does to them is in keeping with the characters. (Trying to explain the difference between allegory and literal representation to them is akin to explaining molecular biology to a broken table leg.) The only bright spot so far is Michael Lesslie; I was all set to make fun of Marvel for hiring the guy who wrote the Hunger Games prequel for their X-Men movie, but then I discovered that he also wrote most of the episodes of the John le Carré adaptation The Little Drummer Girl, which I loved; maybe he’ll be able to crank out a good X-Men movie – or he would have for anyone but Disney/Marvel. (That being said, The Little Drummer Girl is extremely close to the book, so it’s not like he didn’t have a road map to success on that one.)
What makes me laugh, though, is Deadline’s assertion that X-Men ‘97 was a success that led to this decision. While it was mostly well-liked by those who saw it, X-Men ‘97 had the worst ratings of any Marvel show on Disney+. That means worse than bombs like She-Hulk, which isn’t getting renewed, Echo, which was roundly mocked, and Ms. Marvel, the former lowest-performing Disney+ Marvel series. That’s not good, and I don’t know if this is Deadline trying to run interference for Disney or if they mean that X-Men ‘97 got good reviews. However, unless they heard this specifically from their sources, which is unclear, I think this is a mistake on Deadline’s part. X-Men is one of the most promising properties Marvel still has in its reserves, and the only movie it’s got on the horizon that looks like it may be successful is one starring Wolverine. Other than that, they have a bunch of likely duds on their hands, even The Fantastic 4, which could have been a massive hit if the woke-obsessed loons in charge had gotten out of their own way for a change. Aside from Spider-Man and the Hail Mary of bringing back the old Avengers (or multiverse versions of them), they don’t have much to fall back on. I think that’s a much more likely reason for them to be fast-tracking an X-Men movie than a cartoon nobody watched.
But if they keep up their audience-alienating nonsense, this isn’t going to help them, either. I’ve heard from people I trust that X-Men ‘97 was really good, and fans seemed excited for it at first. So, why did nobody watch? My guess is that they saw Morph getting turned into a “nonbinary” person and being in love with Wolverine, and they ran away from what they assumed was another woke time bomb. I know that’s what soured me on it. Additionally, Marvel has lost people’s trust in general, something they once had in spades. As others have said, they’re going to need a few truly great movies and/or shows in a row before they can begin regaining it. Until then, everyone will expect the other shoe to drop eventually, knowing that sooner or later we’ll find out Blade was born a woman or Reed Richards stole all of Sue Storm’s scientific ideas and passed himself off as a genius. The exceptions exist for a reason; Spider-Man: No Way Home had not only the return of Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and some classic Spidey villains, but word got out that it wasn’t woke nonsense but an old-fashioned good time at the movies. And Deadpool & Wolverine is anticipated partly because of Ryan Reynolds and (especially) Hugh Jackman and partly because it’s from the creative team behind the previous Deadpool movies and is seen as mostly separate from the MCU, despite officially being a part of it. (That it appears to be mocking some of the MCU’s worst aspects likely works in its favor, too; Deadpool can’t kill enough TVA agents to satisfy my hatred for them and the stupid show that spawned them.) It’s being made by people who have the audience’s trust, and it’s understood to be an outlier, something of a last hurrah for a great era of superhero movies that managed to survive among the dross of the current one. Any goodwill it engenders will be lost as soon as Star-Spangled Falcon lectures the audience on racism and Blade’s daughter shows him how to kill vampires like a pro. Unless Marvel is going to turn the page on this garbage, their X-Men movie won’t save them any more than No Way Home did, or Deadpool & Wolverine will.
Comments (1)
Hugh Jackman, McAvoy and Fassbender did a good job on those movies, even if the movies themselves were somewhat lacking. Fans still talk about First Class and Days of Future Past fondly. They are appreciated years later.
Marvel spoiled us early on. Used to think they were gonna nail it with Mutants finally, but now, Marvel has gone cold. They’ve done nothing in the last few years to prove that they have their old magic. I don’t think they should move forward with it.
Just Hugh Jackman alone, delivered a string of adequate movies. I think the fans were actually lucky in the last decade or so. It’s not possible to nail every single IP, every time. To get the tone right is a huge challenge. That’s what makes the standout ones special.
At this point, I am very reluctant. If they were to go in the direction of women, one would think more of an effort would’ve went into She-Hulk. Was the one character they really should’ve got right. I never thought any of the Fantastic Four ones were good.
What’s frustrating about all this is there is just so much source material. The mention of Blade triggers me a bit, because those first do were done so well. Snipes will always be a legend for those. I like the idea and concept of Blood Hunters going on right now in the comics, but Blade is a villain in that. Also, enjoying Avengers Twilight, with the geezer Avengers, so it is not the writing that is lacking, but the decisions from the top, that are being botched in the M-She-U.