X-Men: The Last Stand may have taken a box office belly flop in its second week of release, but when a movie makes more than $100 million in its first weekend, whatever happens after that is almost irrelevant. X3’s $100+ million was enough to earn it the possibility of a fourth sequel, even though prior to its release Fox executives insisted that they’d never make another one.

Dark Horizons has Marvel head and producer Avi Arad hinting at number four. When asked about the possibility of another movie Avi said, “There's always a chance of an X-Men sequel. It's more of an issue of what is the next X-Men story, and when to do it ... there are so many more characters that we didn't deal with yet. I would not preclude anything.” I think he smells money.

Fox’s X-Men killing executives have to be reconsidering the possibility of more X-Men after all those dollar signs. Just imagine how much money the movie might have made if it were any good! That second weekend 67% drop might have only been %40. If they do make another, let’s hope they don’t take the wrong lesson from X3 and get the idea that it doesn’t matter whether or not they take the time necessary to make the movie right or hire talented writers and directors. Who am I kidding? That’s likely exactly what they think.