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James McAvoy explains why it’ll be tough to fit the X-Men into the MCU
The Disney-Fox merger opens a whole new range of possibilities for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not everyone is terribly eager to see the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and more fall into the hands of Marvel Studios.
Speaking with Yahoo Movies UK, James McAvoy (who plays a young Charles Xavier/Professor X in Fox's current X-Men films) voiced his hesitancy over folding mutants into the MCU.
"I don’t know if the X-Men could go into the Marvel [Cinematic] Universe, I’m not sure," he said. "Maybe they could? But I think what’s different about the Avengers universe anyway is you’ve only got a couple of superheroes in the world. There’s a good amount, but there’s like a couple of football teams’ worth, you know what I mean? Whereas in the X-Men world you’re potentially saying there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of [superheroes], and the social implication of that is different."
While many fans might disagree with the Glass actor, he does have a valid point. Even in the Marvel comics themselves, the X-Men are always treated as separate entities set apart from groups like the Avengers. It often takes special circumstances like the Terrigen Mist (see Inhumans vs. X-Men) to draw them into the fray of the wider universe.
Introducing a ton of mutants into the MCU will be a challenge, but if anyone can do it, it's Sir Kevin Feige. Not too long ago, he teased that plans to incorporate the Fox properties could begin within the next six months.
"The notion of the characters coming back is great. It’s nice when a company that created all these characters can have access to all those characters. It’s unusual not to. But in terms of actually thinking about it and actually planning things, we haven’t started that yet," he said in December.
McAvoy next appears as Xavier in Dark Phoenix, which was written and directed by longtime X-Men producer Simon Kinberg. Set in the '90s and focusing on Sophie Turner's young Jean Grey, the movie hits theaters June 7.
