The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been ramping up to the introduction of the X-Men for years now. It began in 2022 when Kamala Khan was revealed to be a mutant in the Ms. Marvel finale; continued with the appearances of Professor X and Beast in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness and The Marvels; advanced with the parallel universe story that is Deadpool & Wolverine, and most recently, we got a look at a few beloved characters in a teaser for Avengers: Doomsday. At this point, fans are very much salivating to learn where it is all going – and that includes not just the people watching the films, but also those who are making them.
Nia DaCosta, who is best known to MCU fans for directing 2023's The Marvels, has spent recent weeks on the press tour for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (which is presently battling with Avatar: Fire And Ash for the number one spot at the box office), and she was asked about her relationship with Marvel Studios during an interview with Inverse. Although her contribution to the franchise has a bit of a sour legacy thanks to its underwhelming performance in theaters, she is still very much on good terms with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and she even got to pepper the executive/filmmaker with questions about the future of mutants in the canon during a visit to the set of Avengers: Doomsday. Said DaCosta,
I'm a huge X-Men girly and I was just dying. I remember asking Kevin, ‘What is going to happen, Kevin? What's happening?’ It's emotional [for] my nerd baby girl heart.
As alluded to above, the filmmaker personally got the chance to tell stories with mutant characters in the MCU in The Marvels, but what the future has in store for the core X-Men team in the franchise has been a question looming ever since Disney and Fox completed their merger in 2019. From what we can tell, the question will at least be directly addressed if not answered in Avengers: Doomsday, which is confirmed to feature a number of mutant characters in the cast, including Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy / Beast, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, James Marsden as Cyclops, and Channing Tatum as Gambit.
Will those versions of the characters become established as the core X-Men characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Or are there plans ahead within the plotting of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars that will see the canon totally change? It doesn't sound like Nia DaCosta got the answers she was craving during her one-on-one time with Kevin Feige, and we don't expect them to be public any time particularly soon.
New teasers for Avengers: Doomsday keep rolling out – including the most recent, which features heroes from Wakanda meeting the Fantastic Four – and they are helping satiate our hunger for now, as we still have exactly 11 months to wait before the MCU blockbuster arrives in theaters on December 18.
