Having been the subjects of no less than 13 feature films in the space of 20 years, comic book readers, casual audiences, and cinema fans in general are all fully aware of who the X-Men are and what they do.
Over the course of the various sequels, reboots, prequels, and spinoffs, the franchise hauled in over $6 billion at the box office to go down as one of the most commercially successful properties in Hollywood history. Following Disney’s purchase of Fox, the rights fell into the lap of Kevin Feige and his Marvel Cinematic Universe, but is he seeking to reinvent the wheel?
Some fans have been holding out hope that something relating to the X-Men was forthcoming at Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con panel this Saturday, but a recent report indicates that the biggest and most explosive of bombshells may be saved for Disney’s in-house D23 instead. Not only that, but the project was listed as The Mutants, which has naturally gotten the fandom talking.
While there’s nothing wrong with a standalone MCU offering titled The Mutants helping introduce the superpowered outsiders into the mythology, longtime supporters of the shared saga are going to be very quick to voice their displeasure if it turns out to be an X-Men movie in everything but name.
Any core/iconic/well-known members of the team, a certain mutton-chopped killing machine, or a dude in a hoverchair are the building blocks of an X-Men reboot, so calling it something else is only going to open the door to even more criticism of the MCU’s recent output, something Feige will be keen to avoid as the polarizing Phase Four continues.
