Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox will be complete later this year, but that hasn’t stopped fans from holding out hope for Fox’s “X-Men” and mutants universe. The reality though is rather grim, and Fox and longtime “X-Men” producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who spoke at TCA today, realizes that it’s Marvel and Kevin Feige who will be taking control and she and Simon Kinberg are not likely to return.
Some fans have hoped that the “X-Men” cast, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, et al., would cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Schuler Donner said that it’s all up to Marvel. “It’s all in Disney’s playground and they get to decide,” she said, noting she’s not expecting to move over to Marvel Studios. “I don’t know, I don’t think so, certainly in name credit, it’s up to Kevin Feige. I don’t know what Kevin is thinking, I think he’s still dealing with the wealth of characters and trying to make sense of it all.”
Schuler Donner sounded even less hopeful about the beleaguered “New Mutants” film, which has gone through major overhauls and reshoots that have pushed the film back several times (a recent interview with a Marvel comic book artist suggested possibly even another round of reshoots are coming). There have been rumors that the film could be benched into a streaming service and not released theatrically, and she addressed them, saying she’s “hopeful” the film will come out in theaters.
“They worked hard on it,” she said. “I want to see it released [theatrically], I’d hate to see it thrown at Hulu,” so perhaps the movie being relegated to a streaming premiere is a possibility at this point. “New Mutants” is currently set for an August 2, 2019 release, but it’s unclear how far off the extensive reshoots, delayed due to cast availability, have become.
Lastly, the producer quashed any hopes for the Channing Tatum-led “Gambit” despite the movie receiving a March 13, 2020 release by Fox late last year.
Deadline, who was at the TCA event where Schuler Donner was present, said “Gambit” is currently not bubbling in development and there’s no director attached.
Deadline recently floated rumors that star Channing Tatum is mulling the idea of directing, and I can confirm I’ve heard that’s true and that Tatum was hoping to co-direct the film with his friend and producer, director and screenwriter Reid Carolin, who wrote “Magic Mike,” “Magic Mike XXL” and has developed many projects with Tatum since. Tatum and Carolin, who have worked closely with Steven Soderbergh since “Magic Mike” (Carolin also produced “Logan Lucky”), tried in vain over the last year-plus to coax the “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” and “Out Of Sight” filmmaker to helm “Gambit” many times, but superhero films are just not his bag and he turned his friend down politely every time. Carolin had hoped to direct “Gambit” and tried in vain to get it off the ground, but with Marvel/Disney approaching, that plan is likely going to fade away if it hasn’t already.
Lastly, Shuler Donner revealed one Marvel nugget of their “X-Men” plans, saying “there’s been some thoughts about a new Wolverine down the road,” but one supposes those thoughts are vague and you already figured this would be the case since Hugh Jackman hung up the claws.
Lastly, she had one warning for the future and Marvel. “You cannot have too many Marvel, X-Men superhero movies out there: We’ll cancel each other out. Each one has to be distinctive. People will get sick of them. We have to be careful; [Kevin] has to be careful. You can’t have more than four [franchises out there].”
Time will tell if that remains true, but if this isn’t fair warning that the Fox era of Marvel is coming to a close and Marvel Studios is taking over (and wiping the slate clean), I don’t know what else to tell you.