Now that Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are officially back in the “X-Men” universe, 20th Century Fox are getting aggressive with their slate of Marvel movies. Today, the studio announced placeholder dates for six untitled Marvel films. This is on top of the three upcoming X-Men movies scheduled for 2018 we already know are coming: “New Mutants,” “Deadpool 2” and “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” (there is a fourth Untitled Marvel project on Fox’s schedule for February 2019, but it’s unclear if that date still stands)
What could these films be? Well, there are myriad options at this point, but considering the health of their films, you should look to the “Deadpool” series for your first guesses. “Deadpool 2” lands in theaters next June, but writers Rhett Rheese and Paul Wernick have stated before they’re certainly aiming for “Deadpool 3” and an “X-Force” film, so don’t be surprised if the first dates revealed are from that series.
After that, the most likely candidates include further “X-Men” films beyond ‘Dark Phoenix.’ Now that Fassbender, McAvoy and Lawrence are back they can lead several films of the main saga storyline.
Other possibilities include the Channing Tatum-led “Gambit” (I personally don’t see that happening, but that’s me) and further “New Mutants” style-films — one-offs with a lower budget, and genre leanings — but they may wait to see if its a hit first. Still, the company loses nothing by planting release dates in the ground, so you never know.
READ MORE: How Marvel & Sony Are Splitting The ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Money Revealed
The biggest question for Marvel will be whether or not one of the dates is for another crack at “Fantastic Four.” The reboot faceplanted in 2015 with a brutal $167 million worldwide gross and a domestic haul that just barely passed $55 million — awful numbers for a modern day superhero movie and certainly the worst of its kind in years. Of course, just as crucially, the film was a disaster. My guess is another reboot will linger in development, while Fox concentrates on their flagship films and characters. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering “What about Wolverine?” rebooting that character would be a can of worms we’re not about to open here.
So, it appears that Fox’s plan for the foreseeable future is three “X-Men” movies a year, not unlike Marvel and DC templates. The question will be how much will audiences tolerate this uber-saturation. A Fox-produced Marvel movie in June of 2019 would face-off against Sony‘s “Charlie’s Angels” reboot and then would have to contend with an Untitled DC Films movie the following weekend. The Fox made Marvel movie slotted for November 2019 would face stiff competition with another Untitled DC Films movie released at the top of the month and then “Frozen 2” the weekend after. 2020 gets trickier as it’s mostly just untitled release date flags vs. untitled release date flags. But as always, everything is subject to change.
Here’s what Fox’s schedule looks like for the next few years
New Mutants— April 13, 2018
Deadpool 2— June 1, 2018
Dark Phoenix— November 2, 2018
[Untitled Marvel Film— February 14, 2019]
Untitled Marvel Film— June, 7, 2019
Untitled Marvel Film—November 22, 2019
Untitled Marvel Film— March 13, 2020,
Untitled Marvel Film— June 26, 2020,
Untitled Marvel Film— October 2, 2020
Untitled Marvel Film— March 5, 2021
Fox is all-in with Marvel setting new dates for UNTITLED FOX MARVEL flicks: 6/7/19, 11/22/19, 3/13/20, 6/26/20,10/2/20 & 3/5/21.
— Exhibitor Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) June 30, 2017
