X-Men 3 is going to be a last stand for the mutant franchise, in more ways than one.

Yesterday we brought you the story that X3 has recieved a new name. It's being called X-Men: The Last Stand. Today, in an interview with IESB.net, Fox President Tom Rothman spoke about the third ‘X-Men’ sequel and confirmed the name, but that's not all

From what Rothman says, "The Last Stand" is more than just a catchy name. “It's is the conclusion of this trilogy,” he reveals. It’s not just the conclusion of the trilogy though, it sounds like Fox may inexplicably be eager to end the entire X-Men franchise. Tom explains, “it's the culmination and the resolution of those relationships laid out in the first two movies. That doesn't mean never, I would ever say never again but I will say that this brings that saga to an end.”

Wait a minute though, why would Fox prematurely shut down a profitable, and popular franchise like X-Men? Especially one with so many characters still to be developed and so many great storylines still to be brought to the screen? Rothman doesn’t seem to see any of these possibilities. He says, “It goes all the way back to the first one and rounds off and completes that three part story.”

It seems that Fox is eager to kill of the X-Men franchise and move on to less interesting spinoffs based on the X-Men movies. This isn't the first time that we've hard of Fox's disdain for their X-Men cash cow. Tom Rothman confirms the rumors we’ve heard about the impending spinoffs, “we're developing a Wolverine movie right now, we're developing a Magneto picture.” But making a few spinoffs seems an inadequate reason to prematurely get out of the X-Men business. X-Fans hoping for a franchise future that includes Sentinels or the coming of Apocalypse may be left out in the cold.

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