The X-Men franchise didn’t end on a high note and it also used 5-6 big villains throughout their tenure over the last 2 decades, but we’re glad that Fox left some major villains for the MCU to use. The first X-Men movie may take a while to arrive as Marvel is currently working on their next 5-year plan with movies already under works. But we just can’t help ourselves to stop thinking about their debut in the MCU, and who exactly will they be taking on in their first movie.
It is too early to think about it as this is what Kevin Feige had to say of the X-Men and Fantastic Four properties coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“It’ll be a while. It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”
But still, there are reports that Marvel will start working on these projects from now itself. We’ve seen that Marvel obviously loves to plan things way ahead. Black Panther was always present and Easter Eggs were laid down for him about 6 years earlier than he made his debut. The same goes for Namor as he is going to arrive about 11-12 years after his first reference. So, we just cannot say that Marvel doesn’t have any plans for the X-Men. They surely would.
Now according to We Got This Covered and their most “trusted sources” the X-Men will take on Nathaniel Essex aka Mister Sinister when they arrive. Now if this report does turn out to be true, then we have something amazing that is headed for us down the line. Fox was eventually building towards getting Mister Sinister into their X-Verse, but they just couldn’t reach that film. Thankfully for us, this great villain along with many others were left by Fox. Dark Phoenix and Apocalypse have been completely butchered by Fox so Marvel might never use them. But we’re glad that a villain like Mister Sinister was left.
Even if this big bad foe doesn’t appear in the first film, he sure would come into play in the future X-Men movies. He’s one of the few big name X-Men villains who haven’t been used by Fox, so we do have surety that he will make his onscreen debut within the MCU.
A couple of years back, the Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston showed interest in playing the character. Now an X-Men movie may come 5 years down the line, so Marvel could still bring him in if he is interested. Otherwise, they could also go with a younger character. With the X-Men, a whole lot of big name characters come into play, and Marvel is already tackling more than 30 characters. So it would be good if Marvel takes their time to bring the gifted mutants within their well established shared Universe.
As far as the near future of Marvel is concerned, we are yet to know the “What,” but we do know the “When” of the upcoming movies. Disney confirmed the release dates of the upcoming films and here are the probable names that could be attached to those dates:
May 1, 2020 (Black Widow)
November 6, 2020 (The Eternals)
February 12, 2021 (Black Panther 2 / Doctor Strange 2 / Shang Chi)
May 2, 2021 (Black Panther 2 / Doctor Strange 2)
November 5, 2021 (Doctor Strange 2 / Shang Chi)
February 18, 2022 (Captain Marvel 2)
May 6, 2022 (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)
July 29, 2022 (Ant-Man and the Wasp 3 / Spider-Man 3).
