The following contains major spoilers for The Marvels.
Ever since the Walt Disney Company purchased 20th Century Fox, consolidating almost all the outstanding Marvel movie rights under one roof, fans have been excited to see those characters, especially the X-Men, incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We know it will happen, but we don’t know much about when it will happen, beyond Kevin Feige saying “soon.”
Speaking with ET just before the premiere of The Marvels, Kevin Feige talked a bit about the future of the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And he indicated the X-Men would be joining the franchise in live-action “soon,” saying…
I don’t know if it’s delicate. It’s super exciting, but the X-Men are as solid and rich and great a concept and characters as exist. There’s the return of the animated series next year which we’re very excited about and I saw some new final episodes today which really bring it back to that core of who the X-Men are and that soap opera that those characters represent. And then in live-action, people will see, perhaps soon.
But what exactly does soon mean in this context? One could argue that a couple hours after Kevin Feige said this, the statement came true, but I’m not sure all fans would agree.
How The X-Men Factor Into The Marvels
If you’ve seen The Marvels then you know that the X-Men have a part to play, however small, in that story. The Marvels end credits scene includes Monica Rambeau ending up in an alternate universe, where she’s rescued by the X-Men. We see Lyhanna Lynch appear, playing a version of the mutant Binary, and Kelsey Grammer reprises his role as Beast from the Fox X-Men movies.
When Kevin Feige said that people would see the X-Men soon, he might have literally been talking about this scene. But this actually isn’t the first time we’ve seen an X-Men character from the 20th Century Fox universe appear in a Marvel Studios movie. Patrick Stewart appeared as Professor X, in a much larger role, in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, so if simply having an X-Men character appear in the franchise is what counts, it’s actually already happened.
We’re Expecting To See Even More X-Men Characters In Deadpool 3
And this certainly won’t even be the end of it. While there’s a lot we still don’t know about what’s going on in Deadpool 3 it’s been rumored that just about every actor to ever appear in a Fox Marvel movie could reprise their role in the movie. And although director Shawn Levy has indicated not every rumor is accurate, that also means some of them are. And of course, we have Wolverine and Deadpool himself appearing at the very least.
However, all indications are that, like the Professor X and Beast appearances, what we’re going to see in Deadpool 3 is going to be part of the larger Multiverse Saga, and thus while we’ll see these characters, we likely won’t see them in the main MCU timeline, so the question is, when is that going to happen?
When Will The X-Men Get Their Own MCU Movie?
Seeing the X-Men appear in the MCU is one thing, but when they’ll truly become a part of it is a different question. We’re not expecting the MCU X-Men to be played by all the same actors of the Fox franchise. So when will we see those characters?
Based on the current schedule of upcoming Marvel movies, that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon. The rest of Phase 5 is pretty well scheduled, and Phase 6 is already set to pick up where that leaves off. There is a current gap of exactly one year between the two scheduled Avengers movies, so we could see an X-Men movie appear in between and introduce the MCU X-Men the same way Captain Marvel appeared between the last two Avengers films.
Of course, that puts an X-Men movie somewhere between late 2026 and early 2027, and I’m not sure a movie that’s three years away qualifies as soon. And that assumes that the X-Men joining the MCU happens before the Multiverse Saga comes to an end. From a storyline perspective it may be that the resolution of the Multiverse is what brings the X-Men into the main continuity, which means we might not see an X-Men movie until Phase 7.
