The Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to get even bigger in a few years’ time as, once the Disney-Fox merger is completed, Marvel Studios will at last have the rights to the entirety of the X-Men universe and the Fantastic Four. It’s a matter of the utmost interest for fans, then, how the studio will go about folding mutantkind into the established history of the MCU, so any official word on the subject is highly scrutinized.
With that in mind, get ready to start analyzing, as Marvel chief Kevin Feige has given a fresh response on the subject while in conversation with Coming Soon. First off, the producer revealed that discussions currently aren’t happening in “any way, shape or form,” but he did say that he believes they’ll be able to handle the challenge of introducing mutants into the franchise, as they’ve been tying the various parts of the comic book universe together with a lot of success for ten years now.
“You’re right, it’s too far out to talk about whether it will happen of not. We’re not working on it in any way, shape or form. We’ve got five films on the docket we’ve already announced that are taking a big percent of our time. But I will say to your very good question that if you look back to Phase 1 and after “Iron Man” was released and we announced our upcoming films, one of which was “Thor,” people said, “How in the WORLD can you bring in a Norse god who flies with a hammer into the world you’ve established of Tony Stark and Stark Industries?”
Continuing on, he said:
That was sort of the reason we made the “Thor” film the way we did, was to ease character into a world together, even though they might not understand each other and might have trouble getting along at first, that’s the fun of it. But tonally there’s always a way, and as you said the comics have been navigating it quite well for half a century.”
Feige is right that Marvel Studios will likely handle the X-Men’s introduction to the MCU well, at least in tonal terms. The big question for fans, though, is how will it be handled in terms of continuity? Mutants clearly don’t exist in the franchise in its current form, so how will this entire species of super-powered humans suddenly pop up?
Well, the common theory is that Avengers 4 will feature some big universe reset that will allow continuity to be rewritten. However, that seems unlikely as, like Feige says, it’s too early for Disney to start playing with Fox’s toybox just yet.
Still, we know that Marvel Studios brass are very keen to get their hands on Wolverine, in particular, and reboot the iconic character as part of the MCU. Even Avengers: Infinity War directors the Russos have said they would’ve loved to have got him in their new movie. In other words, we imagine that things will start to kick into gear over the next year or so. For now, though, we’ll be sure to keep our ears to the ground and listen out for any new info regarding the incoming arrival of the X-Men.