Who would have guessed that, fourteen years after Fox’s modest X-Men became a huge hit, the franchise would be poised to release next year’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past, the seventh film in this blockbuster series? And who could have guessed that they would make room for not one but TWO solo films about Wolverine? Fans have gone insane about how The Avengers and Marvel’s self-produced films have brought to life the hopes and dreams of a generation of comic book fans. But they haven’t exactly gone down the rabbit hole the way the X-series has: having Thanos lingering in the shadows at the end of The Avengers is one thing, but could any X-fan imagine seeing a film one day that would devote screentime to an airborne dogfight between Banshee and Angel Salvadore?
The Iron Man-era Marvel films (and, to a lesser extent, Sony’s Spider-Man universe) have prided themselves on airtight logic and vast, continuing storylines. But in fourteen years, Fox has allowed the franchise to feature multiple, wildly different interpretations of characters like White Queen, General William Stryker, Quicksilver, Bolivar Trask and Sabretooth, throwing continuity to the wind (a semi-complete list of the franchise's bizarre contradictions is provided at the bottom of this article for your convenience). The casual fan might not even remember all of these characters (though all the films have been hits), a thought that has likely emboldened Fox to take a fairly cavalier approach, resulting in a fluctuating quality that they're still trying to rebound from.
Of course, it could have been worse. It could have been wildly different: the X-Men were a property that attracted Hollywood for a long time. Memorably, James Cameron toyed with the mythology when the property was set up at Carolco, though his interest quickly segued to Spider-Man. Along the way, scripts were written by some of the top scribes in the industry, and their influences were felt by director Bryan Singer when he tackled the material for Fox.
Under Singer, even more re-writes followed, from forces as prominent as Singer’s Oscar-winning writer of The Usual Suspects,Christopher McQuarrie, and as obscure as a little-known TV writer named Joss Whedon. Fox had so little confidence in the Merry Mutants that they famously cut the budget repeatedly during pre-production, shortening the production schedule so Singer could complete his first big budget studio film for summer 2000, and not its intended winter ’00 bow.
The first film has its share of dated effects, some of which even looked dodgy at the time. But the DNA of the modern comic book adaptation remains: this is a serious, sobering adaptation of a story about persecuted minorities. The malleability of the metaphor was not lost on Singer, an openly homosexual director who found a strong kinship with these characters, and it carried on through the surprisingly strong dialogue sequences.
The rumors of who had turned down roles in “this silly comic book film” featured almost every leading man and woman in the industry, but Singer was blessed with a game cast, with the tempo set by Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen as Professor X and Magneto. Each scene between the two of them, you forget you’re watching a big budget superhero blockbuster with capes and leather, and you focus on two classically trained thespians who can sell anything…even a storyline that involves an improbable doomsday device like the one that turns humans into temporary mutants that drives the skimpy X-Men plot.
The filming of Mission: Impossible 2 ran so long that X-Men ended up shooting three whole weeks without its star, Dougray Scott, the man who would be Wolverine. Instead, little-known Australian actor Hugh Jackman stepped into the role and the rest is history. The dashingly handsome Jackman had a streak of early Eastwood in him, a masculine ferocity that added a sexual threat to the bladed hero, making him the easy breakout candidate and the eventual face of the franchise. Despite the comic book trappings, Singer emphasized the science fiction aspects of the story, making a film about misfits and outcasts that, thanks to Jackman and company, still had a human heart. Consider that against the Varsity Team appeal of the Iron Man movies, and you realize how far these films have come, and how the audience has evolved.
A second hit film followed, this one with twice the budget and twice the action. X2: X-Men United remains the crown jewel of the series, a tightly-paced multi-character epic that actually eschews most of the X-Men’s memorable rogues gallery in favor of General Stryker. Loosely adapting the storyline “God Loves, Man Kills” (where he was known as Reverend Stryker), Singer kept the film earthbound while still increasing the amount of mutant mayhem the fans treasured. The first film was something of a table-setter, but to be in the audience during opening weekend of X2 is to hear the reactions of fans who think, “Finally,” when Wolverine begins doling out hardcore violence, when Nightcrawler performs his famous *BAMF* and when Magneto reveals there are very few limits to his power during an audacious plastic prison breakout.
Depending on whom you ask, Singer was not getting the budget he was asking for, and Fox did not have the cooperation they had hoped for. As a result, Singer opted to film Superman Returns for Warner Bros., and hostilities led Fox to force production on X-Men: The Last Stand to beat Supermanto the punch. Superman Returns ended up being a long, expensive but comfortable shoot for Singer, and the resulting movie is problematic and quiet, but at times graceful and sentimental. In contrast, The Last Stand was ugly, violent, and overly busy, a textbook case of when a studio employs a massive budget on lame punch-outs.
Superman Returns was already into production when Fox hired Matthew Vaughn to helm the third X-Menfilm, allowing him to develop the script with collaborators. By the time he bailed, the studio was scrambling to meet a release date, a common practice today that yields no better rewards. In walked Brett Ratner, a filmmaker smart enough to embrace the chaos, but not skilled enough to mold it into something manageable.
There’s a sensitivity to Singer’s X-Men films, one that Ratner abandoned: if Singer’s films were directed by the sensitive loner, Ratner’s lone offering is like the school bully flexing for the dumb cheerleader. Filled with logistical constraints and an overwhelming need to shove characters into the narrative regardless of purpose, the picture is especially unkind to the mutants that existed on the fringes of this series. Some are killed, many unceremoniously, and the women who survive are called “bitch,” brutalized, and demonized into serving the male characters. Wolverine is even more front-and-center, while the destitute Morlocks of the comics are depoliticized, turned into bad guy cannon fodder against the white (and blue) muties of Westchester. It’s an ugly film, and despite being the highest grossing in the series, there’s the sense Fox thought so as well.
With costs rising for potential returning castmates, Fox attempted to double down on their stars, appeasing them with solo character films instead of a costly ensemble effort. Films spotlighting Storm and Magneto never materialized (the latter apparently had a script from Oscar winner Sheldon Turner), but Fox went ahead with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And, slowly, the wheels began to come off. Daniel Benioff (The 25th Hour) actually got the job writing the script for the film based on a pitch he had, but that million dollar payday mutated into a for-hire gig for half of Hollywood, many of whom took turns toning down an idea that Benioff conceived as R-rated.
Elements of Wolverine: Origins weaved their way into the script; the comic was apparently born out of a Marvel brainstorming session when the company realized the movies would reveal Wolverine’s mysterious background before the comics did, so they had to cook something up quick. Unfortunately, the comic was pablum, but that didn’t stop Fox from boosting it word-for-word like it was the Book of Revelations.
Gavin Hood was hired as the director, but on-set disagreements marred the production, particularly as Fox kept adding new story elements, eventually turning Wolverine’s solo outing into another team picture. Characters from earlier films reappeared in pointlessly new interpretations, like a non-feral Sabretooth (who went from wrestler Tyler Mane to erudite theater legend Liev Schrieber). Others pop up despite having no real relationship to the period-specific Wolverine mythos, including characters like Blob and Gambit. And cameos from the likes of a young Cyclops seem to suggest this is happening in a completely different timeline to the earlier films. More importantly (and this won’t be harped on for too long) it’s a terrible, incompetent film with nonsense plot developments and idiotic action sequences.
Declining box office suggested that X-Men Origins: Wolverine spelled the end for the films. Fox opted to take one more shot with X-Men: First Class, a mixed success that simply confused audiences and fans even more. The picture remains the lowest-grossing in the series stateside, but coming out in a post-Avatarglobal marketplace, the international take was fairly large. The story, credited to Bryan Singer, was even more outlandish than before. Singer and his collaborator Matthew Vaughn, however, knew not to make the mutants the main story. While Singer’s earlier films had a tinge of sci-fi, First Classis primarily a period picture with Cold War spy trappings. More importantly, unlike The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it was made with confidence and aggression by a hungry Vaughn, working with his first big budget.
The fans’ confusion was merited, however. Not only was this the first film in the series not led by the presence of Wolverine (Jackman makes a gracious one-scene cameo), but it didn’t feature characters like Cyclops or Storm either. Instead, the focus, like the beginning of these films, was on Professor X and Magneto. And, like the beginning, Vaughn and Singer had two wonderful actors to bring these characters to life. The dynamic between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender is different than the one shared by Stewart and McKellen in the earlier films, but it still crackles with that sense of good friends at philosophical odds. It’s unfortunate that the film becomes cluttered with the presence of mutants like Banshee and Darwin, non-starters that generated apathetic response from even the fans.
Consider where the audiences and studios have been in the history of comic book films. The summer of 2011 found First Class joined by three other comic book blockbusters. Green Lantern, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger were all superhero stories that introduced a larger-than-life do-gooder facing clear-cut opposition from a powerful, scheming madman. First Class was the fifth, and most unrecognizable, film in an ongoing series that suddenly ported the main conflict into the sixties and featured a climax tied into the Cuban Missile Crisis, featuring a mixture of actors and characters we’d never seen before. Other series were playing checkers; the X-Men were playing computer chess.
Reviews and word-of-mouth were really all that separated First Class from the previous two X-films, suggesting the series was on a downward slope financially. But it’s the success of Marvel’s self-produced films that has given Fox the shot in the arm to become more aggressive with their X-Men films despite possibly waning audience interest. After waffling for a couple of years, Fox opted to move ahead on a Wolverine sequel, though the fact they’ve opted for a modern day setting (the last film is primarily set in the 1970’s) suggests rumors are true that The Wolverine will tie into next year’s ambitious X-Men: Days Of Future Past. That film serves as the defacto First Class follow-up, though they’ll be combining the cast of the earlier Singer films and the recent Vaughn offering, creating a way for the series’ sloppy continuity to “fix” itself.
The gambit is big and bold. If it fails (and some prognostications are suggesting The Wolverine will continue the trend of underperforming X-Men films stateside), Fox might have to find a new use for their X-Men rights. But if it succeeds, then Fox may have a self-sustaining blockbuster machine that will work much like the initial plans for Disney and Lucasfilm, where they would release a new Star Wars-related film each year. Days of Future Past supposedly restarts the mythos after some wonky time travel shenanigans, which are probably drastically different from the original comic storyline of the same name. But it looks like it’s also going to emphasize the wider universe of these characters, which in the comics stretched to infinite lengths.
The first salvo was a rumor about a film featuring X-Force, a paramilitary mutant group headed by Cable, the older son of Cyclops from an apocalyptic future not unlike the one we see in Days of Future Past. The X-Men films so far have taken steps to portray Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters as just that, not the superhero factory of the comics, so a more proactive group of superpowered individuals makes sense. Kick-Ass 2 director Jeff Wadlow is rumored to be writing the script for this film with an eye to direct: Matthew Vaughn directed the first Kick-Ass so it seems clear that Fox really likes that franchise.
Maybe they like those films enough to borrow more extensively, enough for Fox to consider X-Statix. The original comic series showcased a group of mutants hungry for fame who were willing to use reality TV to spread their popularity. That concept seems to borrow heavily from the social media references in the Kick-Ass films. While the X-Statix comic never had any real breakout stars, there’s no reason Fox can’t fudge the lineup and maybe utilize some of the unused members of the dubious 90’s-era Generation X. Those characters had their own shot, but the result was a little-seen live-action Fox pilot in the nineties that aired as a TV movie. If you find it on YouTube, you’ll agree that it’s very era-appropriate, if anything.
Several members of X-Factor have showed up in the films thus far, like Havok in First Class and Multiple Man in The Last Stand. While it may be a continuity stretch, why not have a few familiar faces lead this team onto the big screen? There was very little separating X-Factor from other mutant teams in the comics, but given that the X-Men aren’t exactly a squad of problem solvers in the film, something a bit less militaristic than X-Force might be welcome.
Or maybe they can just push Deadpoolinto development? Fox has had a script from Zombielandwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick gathering dust at the studio, hitching their wagon to Ryan Reynolds, who played the "Merc With A Mouth" in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. If the new Fox is dedicated to understanding continuity and world-building, then it was the old Fox that made X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where Deadpool is completely unrecognizable from the comics (and to even fair-weather fans who know the character’s iconic appearance). Of course, Reynolds is practically kryptonite to comic book movies at this point: he killed a franchise in Blade Trinity, set DC Comics movies back years with Green Lantern, and… do we really have to talk about R.I.P.D.?
The Deadpoolscript takes place in the modern X-Men mythos, but, true to the concept of the character, consistently breaks the fourth wall to make jokes about the franchise (particularly one good, innocent gag about X-Men Origins: Wolverine). It’s decidedly R-rated, with several moments of ultraviolence familiar to fans of the character. But it’s also a riot, one that mostly honors the series by featuring a meaty co-starring role for Colossus while going its own way. One suspects the fear isn’t that it’s unmarketable or not good, but that it would provide a distraction to the rest of the more consistent world-building going on at Fox. Fourteen years into the X-Men film series, did anyone suspect we would ever say such a thing?
The promised unpacking of the character contradictions:
The White Queen is a main antagonist in X-Men: First Class but she is also seen as a teenage girl in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film that takes place more than a decade later. General Stryker has a Southern accent in X2: X-Men Unitedbut is clearly Canadian in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Quicksilver, featured in next summer’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past, also shows up in a wordless cameo in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, while Days Of Future Past villain Trask is played by Peter Dinklage in that film, though Bill Duke takes the role in X-Men: The Last Stand, with both films taking place during wildly different time periods. And the character of Sabretooth is monosyllabic in X-Men, but fairly well-spoken and sophisticated in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In all cases, these characters are played by different actors. And a final FYI: the Angel played by Ben Foster in X-Men: The Last Stand is different character than the female Angel Salvadore played by Zoe Kravitz in X-Men: First Class, and there is intentionally no relation between either.
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