X-Men to MCU Merger - wild speculations

So next year we'll have Avengers: Endgame, Dark Phoenix, and Captain Marvel. There has been speculation that Captain Marvel will show up in Endgame to help defeat Thanos, but who knows.

Dark Phoenix is the last Fox X-movie, with rights moving over to Disney and presumably to enfold into the MCU, or whatever remains of it.

There's a huge void, though, as to what 2020 and beyond will look like. We know Spiderman and others survive, as there are already films announced, but how do you see things playing out?

I have two totally groundless speculations. One is that they'll find some way to tie the X-Men in during the Dark Phoenix movie. Maybe merged alternate earths.

Two, I don't see a total reboot - as in new and younger actors for the same old origin stories of Iron Man, Captain America, etc. But I do think these roles will be back, but with new actors within the existing MCU - almost certainly more female-centric. In other words, Tony Stark might pick an Iron Woman replacement. She-hulk? Female Captain America, or maybe Captain Marvel taking on the role of Avengers leader?

We'll probably see several actors continue their roles, depending upon whether they want to. I could see (and hope) that Benedict Cumberbatch continues as Doctor Strange and, unlike some of the others, he has time on his side and could theoretically continue indefinitely as he won't be "aged out." I think Black Panther will be back; we already know that Spider-man as well, and the Guardians of the Galaxy in some form or other. Thor? I think he's done, or at least he'll retire to rebuild Asgard and maybe show up in a cameo in later films. No idea about the others.

As for the X-Men, who knows. The core actors are pretty good and young enough for years of films, but I'm guessing that at least Fassbender and Lawrence are done after Dark Phoenix. I could see McAvoy continuing to re-start the School for Gifted Youngsters, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he sacrifices himself to save the world from Dark Phoenix. If Jean survives (in a "gelded" form), they could take a more traditional approach with her and Cyclops as central, with Storm, Beast, Quicksilver, maybe one or two others filling out the roster. And of course we'll see some kind of Wolverine back.

My guess is that the next big "event" - probably a few years into the new era - would be an X-Men/Avengers crossover. Possibly Secret Wars?

In fact, what about this for wild speculation: What if Jessica Chastain is the Beyonder?! What if she actually grabbed the disappeared Avengers and "saves" the X-Men after Dark Phoenix destroys X-Earth, maybe even grabs a Fantastic Four team from another alternate earth, ships them off to another world to fight, then they end up joining forces to defeat her, or at least convince her to return them to a fixed world, but she throws in a twist and their worlds are merged into one? I don't think that will happen, but it should.

I haven't been keeping up with the X-movies, which gives me a different viewpoint on this not knowing the actors or the current interpretations of the characters.

With that said, I don't see MCU continuing the Fox characters - they have a long running terd for making characters moviegoers like, and with changes in writers, directors, production style, and possibly tone, it seems like brought over characters would have a good chance of feeling like imitations. Rebooting the X franchise carries none of that and gives them free reign in their already established cinematic universe.

I'd really enjoy a classic-style Secret Wars with a Beyonder storyline. They'd be free to shake things up and smash the fragments of the franchise together without too many problems. As long as we'd finally get an on-screen Doctor Doom who was like, you know, smart.

Mercurius said:

So next year we'll have Avengers: Endgame, Dark Phoenix, and Captain Marvel. There has been speculation that Captain Marvel will show up in Endgame to help defeat Thanos, but who knows.

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Um it isn't speculation, what is speculation is HOW.

I want a stand lone Doctor Doom Movie where Doom is the 'Hero'

Then Doom vs Spiderman and the Fantastic Four

I think the Fox Xmen are now goneski - in the future we might get individual mutants appearing in future MCU movies but the next Xmen will be an entire reboot of the franchise (which wont be a issue since Fox had had something like 4 soft reboots just in their run)

Next Crossover has to be Galactus

Mercurius said:

There has been speculation that Captain Marvel will show up in Endgame to help defeat Thanos, but who knows.

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As Brie Larson is listed among the cast of Endgame, & Capt. Marvel was specifically paged by Fury in the credits of Infinity War, I'd say that it's a virtual lock....

And there's a reason Capt. Marvel opens 1 month before Endgame. It's to establish the character & get all the non-comic readers up to speed on who this new character is before dumping her into the mix come April.

I also predict that we'll be seeing more of her as making that solo movie to introduce her would be pretty pointless & expensive if there weren't future plans....

Mercurius said:

There's a huge void, though, as to what 2020 and beyond will look like. ]

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No there's not. We're just not privy to the majority of the details yet.
But I'm going to bet (based on IMDB);
Scarlet Witch survives - gets a series on Disney's new streaming service,
Black Widow survives & headlines her own movie,
Loki survives - get's his own series on Disney's new streaming service,
Fury & Hill show up in the next Spiderman movie.
Spiderman obviously survives. As does his supporting cast & Toomes (Vulture).
(a) Black Panther returns in BP2


Other surviving characters will be re-cast or the original actors signed to make cameos as needed.

I think the Fox X-Men cast are done after Phoenix. Oh sure, the main characters will return under the MCU banner, but not these actors.

It'll also be a good bit before we see GotG v.3 - and not likely with the same characters.

And some day after that we'll see another stab at the Fantastic Four.

Tonguez said:

I want a stand lone Doctor Doom Movie where Doom is the 'Hero'

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I think you're onto something, but not quite the right structure.

I would be happy if Doctor Doom were the next villain whose actions and McGuffins and all threaded across several movies. In a slow, calculated way, stepping up into power because SHIELD is no longer there to stop him? Yeah, that's a good idea.

This, of course, is predicated on doing a *good* Fantastic Four. If you do Doom without the FF, you are dead to me.

I don't know if they are going to want to do the massive crossover again - those things are risky, and while they've done it well, they chew up a lot of your storytelling time.

I'm expecting a hard reboot of the X- franchise (since the Stewart timeline has come to an end, and the McAvoy one has become rather stale). I'm also expecting a soft reboot of the MCU - probably putting many of the existing characters on hiatus, with the next Phase carried forward by Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Spider-man. Then, when they want to bring back Iron Man and the rest, they'll bring in new actors in the role, whether that's with a new person under the armour or a new actor playing Tony Stark or whoever.

(Endgame will probably have some sort of time-travel related solution, which will give them scope to make whatever changes they feel they need.)

I would love a big Galactus event. It also implies the Silver Surfer, probably my all-time favorite comic hero. I could see GotG 3 leading into this in some way - perhaps they realize Galactus is coming. It is also a good way to get the FF back in the mix.

And yeah, the next phase being centered on BP, CM, and SM makes sense. I like the idea of Iron Man and CM being titles that would be filled by new people, with the older actors coming in as cameos, mentors, etc - if they survive.

Rebooting X-Men? I'm somewhere between maybe and probably. I suppose it makes sense in that the merger allows them to introduce mutants ot the MCU as a new/unknown phenomena. I think the best starting point as a new "origin movie" would be with Xavier founding his school, finding the first X-Men, be it the classic five or a group closer to the second wave (Wolverine will be back).

Part of the problem is re-casting actors who were so iconic as their characters: Jackman as Wolverine is the big one, but I'd also say Fassbender as Magneto. Replacing Stewart as X was difficult, but MacAvoy did a pretyt good job (ala Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness). I'm not really attached to any of the others.

delericho said:

(Endgame will probably have some sort of time-travel related solution, which will give them scope to make whatever changes they feel they need.)

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Given the reports of seeing actors in older versions of costumes on set at various times during filming of this movie, it seems probable. Not my favorite, but fine, if you need time travel to write your way out of the corner, so be it.

It strikes me that there's been a really long game being played. Check this out - all the characters have had costume variations across the movies, right? You'd chalk this up to artistic style differences, right? But for one - Black Widow. She's in form-fitting black *all the time*. Very, very difficult to see differences unless you have long shots showing details, which doesn't happen in action scenes.

But note this - her *hair* has been radically different in each movie. It is *easy* to peg which movie you are in, based on Black Widow's hair. You wanna tell me that's just artistic differences, and not a planned way to show time period?

Also, just because - consider the possibility that the time travel shenanigans... leads to the existence of mutants as a side effect! Mutants have been so majorly *absent* from the MCU, how do you introduce them? "Oh, yeah, we've had all this stuff going on, and never seen a single mutant, but here they are now, in full force!" Rewrite history, though, and you can *literally* retcon them into existence.

That'd be tidy, now wouldn't it?