Twentieth Century Fox Marvel film The New Mutants initially took place around the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, according to a new report. With Marvel at the helm, could the studio use this film to officially bring the X-Men into the MCU?
New Mutants is the first X-Men spin-off film, although it’s a stand alone film.
The New Mutants takes a dramatic turn in setting and feel from the films before it. This isn’t your traditional superhero movie. There’s no X-Jet, no Wolverine, no Cyclops, and no Professor X.
In an interview with Screen Rant, director Josh Boone said Fox wanted the film set in the 1980s and in the same timeline as the First Class films. The studio wanted Professor X to appear in the film.
Fox greenlit the film, allowing Boone to make a true horror film. Boone couldn’t believe the studio approved the change in tone and genre:
“It’s funny man, they’re so emboldened by Deadpool and Logan and that they really let us – I can’t believe they’re letting us make this movie.
If they knew all the stuff in this, I’m still like ‘Do they know how f-cked up this movie is?’”
Both studios chose to shelve The New Mutants for a few years while the Disney buyout of Twentieth Century Fox took place.
Rumors stated that Marvel might retool the film, or shelve it completely due to its drastically different approach tot he superhero genre.
MCU fans anxiously await the arrival of the X-Men into the Marvel universe. The safe bet is that Marvel is waiting until Phase 5 to even begin to seed the X-Men into the MCU, but what if they did it earlier?
What if Marvel used The New Mutants to introduce us to the new Professor Xavier?
It would be a monumental surprise, something Marvel is known for. The studio should take the opportunity to slowly integrate the X-Men into the MCU (using The New Mutants as the springboard).
This all hinges on how Marvel explains the mutant absence from the Infinity Saga films.
This approach would be more of a slow burn, rather than the MCU rushing out an X-Men film.
Don’t give fans a whole film of characters that each need an introduction for world building in a single film. It’s a smarter move to slowly integrate each character into the storytelling fabric of the universe?
This move would fall in line with previous introductions Marvel gave fans. Remember how fans went ballistic over Spider-Man’s introduction in Captain America: Civil War?
The studio could trickle in cameos for mutants beginning now. This gives the X-Men a firm place in the MCU by the time an X-Men film comes around.
