Though Deadpool was incredibly successful, and Logan looks like an absolute winner, Fox’s X-Men universe has certainly seen better days. Gambit is stuck in development hell and the last film featuring the mutants, Apocalypse, was mediocre at best. All of that’s in addition to the fact that Deadpool 2 is facing a bit of trouble what with director Tim Miller and composer Junkie XL departing.
So, what’s the studio to do? Well, according to THR, they may be planning a soft reboot of the franchise in order to pick things back up again. Producer Simon Kinberg is apparently working on a new script that will “reconfigure Fox’s flagship series” and turn it around from where it currently is.
[zergpaid]Director Bryan Singer won’t be involved in these plans, which is a bit surprising, but the studio hopes to keep Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy on board and is re-working the franchise with them in mind. No further details were given on what direction they’re heading in with their new plans, but it’s said that Gambit will be pushed back into active development shortly and Josh Boone’s The New Mutants will also be put on the fast track in hopes of lighting a fire under the X-Men universe.
There’s been no talks yet of Fox making a deal with Marvel Studios, but you have to believe that might be an option as well if everything else fails. After all, it turned out to be a smart move for Sony and I don’t think Fox would be making a mistake should they choose to follow that path as well.
It remains to be seen how the studio will ultimately handle their X-Men franchise moving forward, but it definitely needs a bit of a shake up given how Apocalypse performed. If The New Mutants, Gambit and Deadpool 2 prove to be successful, they could get back to firing on all cylinders again, but as of now, it’s simply too early to tell how everything will pan out.
While we wait for more answers from Fox, feel free to drop us a comment down below letting us know what you think the studio should do with their flagship series.