With Disney’s buyout of Fox, that means Marvel Studios now has the rights to the X-Men at last. We’ve had it confirmed that the upcoming Dark Phoenix will be the final installment in the current franchise, which must mean that Marvel has plans to reboot the adventures of Professor X and his mutant charges in the not-so-distant future. But what if they decided to move forward by going back and rehiring some former stars of the movies?
For instance, could James Marsden return as Cyclops in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? ComicBook.com put the question to the actor and naturally, the star of the original trilogy and X-Men: Days of Future Past revealed that he’d be “totally open” to that possibility if there was a way that could happen.
“Sure, I’d be down. I think that world, there just are no rules. You can do whatever you want. If there’s some iteration down the line where we’re involved…that’s been a special thing to be a part of for a good period of my life and I love those fans and I love playing that character so, yeah, I’d be totally open to that.”
So, could there be a place for Marsden in the MCU? Well, unless Kevin Feige plans to do something really bold and explore a multiverse of different Marvel realities or something, we can’t see Marsden returning as Scott Summers. For one, Tye Sheridan is the current incumbent of the role and, besides, the studio is highly likely to reboot and hire a whole new cast.
However, there’s nothing stopping him from playing a different character in an MCU film. Marvel proved that they’re open to legacy or fan-pleasing meta casting in their Spider-Man movies, for instance, which have found space for former Batman Michael Keaton and one-time almost Spidey Jake Gyllenhaal.
At this stage, we don’t even know if Marvel wants to use Cyclops, at least straight away, as the character has been such a prominent part of Fox’s films. Then again, it’s hard to imagine the X-Men without ol’ Cyke, so who knows? Maybe after Dark Phoenix drops on June 5th, Disney will start releasing their plans.
