20th Century Fox is in a bit of trouble with their X-Men franchise. The latest instalment, Apocalypse, was incredibly disappointing and underperformed at the box office, and several of the actors are no longer under contract anymore. We’re not just talking about the supporting players, either. No, we’re referring to the big three: Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were all under contract up until Apocalypse, which means they don’t have to return to the franchise if they don’t want to.
Lawrence has already been pretty vocal about moving on, and with talk of a soft reboot for the X-Men in the cards, the studio may not even need her for their future plans. However, we have heard that Fox would like to keep their big three in play in at least some capacity, even if it won’t be for lead roles. If one thing’s certain, it’s that the future of the franchise is unclear right now and re-iterating that fact this week is Michael Fassbender.
In an interview to promote Assassin’s Creed, which has also been a tremendous disappointment, the actor mentioned that he’s still unsure of whether or not he’ll return to reprise the role of Magneto because he has no idea what’s happening with the next film.
“I don’t know to be honest,” he admitted. “I haven’t made any sort of decision on it because I have no idea what’s happening next with the franchise to be honest.”
That answer doesn’t sound too encouraging, but never say never. Despite the fact that he’s no longer under contract anymore, Fassbender could still return. After all, given how Assassin’s Creed is performing at the moment he likely won’t be busy with the franchise for much longer, as we can’t see it getting a sequel. Still, we have seen an awful lot of Magneto lately, in both the old X-Men trilogy and the new one, so the studio may decide to retire him for a while and give fans something fresh.
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but in the meantime, let us know down below whether or not you want to see Michael Fassbender return to the X-Men franchise.
