With the Disney/Fox deal only just closing last month, it came as no surprise that none of Disney’s newly acquired characters appeared in the recent Avengers: Endgame.
For one thing, the merger happened way too late in the game for Marvel Studios to cast any major newcomers, let alone shoot an extra scene for the Avengers: Infinity War sequel. And in an interview with The New York Times, co-writer Christopher Markus argued that rebooting the X-Men franchise before the Fox run had even finished would’ve been a little insulting:
“I guess it’s done now but it wasn’t done then. They still have an ‘X-Men’ movie [‘Dark Phoenix,’ due in June]. You can’t reboot them before they’re done. ‘Sorry to completely screw you.’”
In a recent interview with io9, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said it would be “a very long time” before any X-Men appear in the MCU, explaining that Marvel’s next five years had already been mapped out before the merger came into effect. Indeed, the fact that Fox’s take on the property is only just nearing the end of a run that’s lasted almost two decades makes a good argument for letting the property cool off for a while.
In the meantime, Marvel’s schedule for the next couple of years is looking busy enough as is. Now that Avengers: Endgame is in theaters, the MCU still has one more 2019 release to go – that being, Spider-Man: Far From Home, which comes out on July 2nd. After that, Black Widow is expected to kick off Phase 4 next year, and Chloé Zhao’s The Eternals may be soon to follow.
Meanwhile, the current continuity of the X-Men franchise continues with the release of Dark Phoenix on June 7th, followed by The New Mutants on some unknowable date.
