The X-Men franchise is one of the oldest franchises for the new millennium, but it has been facing trouble in the past few years. The soft reboot that was supposed to be the money maker did not do as expected, so there have been rumors of a reboot happening. The franchise has many flaws but here are four major reasons for the reboot to happen soon.
The X-Men franchise Is Not Equipped For A Cinematic Universe
While MCU and DCEU have entered the movie world with a strategic plan of building a Cinematic Universe that relied on continuity, Fox never had that in mind. The studio had released the X-Men movies at a time when sequels were more in trend. The third X-Men film The Last Stand, for instance, was supposed to be the closing of that particular series, so major key players like Professor X were killed off. The soft reboot was intended to launch a prequel, using a whole new time space and new characters, but when Fox realized they could not use characters from the first trilogy like Wolverine, Jean Grey etc., they changed their plan and used them again in X-Men:Days Of Future’s Past.
With the rumors of a hard reboot, Fox has to plan out the world that could be inclusive of their other successful characters like Deadpool and the upcoming New Mutants. Having the movie’s be isolated from each other makes future films more limited and formulaic.
The Messy Timeline
For a Cinematic Universe to work, the key players are presumed to be in the same timeline. Fox has an annoying habit of making films that do not have any relation to each other, hence giving audiences a timeline that is rather messy. X-Men: First Class was set in the 60’s while Apocolypse sees a time lapse to the 80’s. The upcoming Logan movie is set in 2020 while Deadpool is set in our current time (supposedly). There is a fracture in the timelines, and it would take a pretty creative team to join together all of the future films.
The Underperformance Of The New X-Men Films
The X-Men films were supposed to be the tentpole movies of the whole franchise. The reboot films have unfortunately been under performing to what Fox had expected while its tie-in movie Deadpool has been the biggest hit for Fox this year. Deadpool was made on a budget of $58 million,and it made $782.6 million. X-Men:Apocalypse was made on a budget of $178 million, but it made approximately $548 million. This may look like a strong number, but it underperformed when compared to its predecessors.
The Franchise is Centered Upon Individual Actors
The X-Men franchise has a history of focusing on particular characters story line. This has become a weakness to the film’s future. The X-Men are supposed to be a team, but audiences have become accustomed to seeing the story lines of Charles Xavier, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Mystique, and Magneto. The films suffer as a result when the fan favorites are not featured in the movie.The films suffer as a result when the fan favorites are not featured in the movie. The reboot should focus more on all the characters so that audiences are invested enough to continue watching the films.
