X-Men: Apocalypse may have opened only a few short months ago, but people are already talking about the next movie in the superhero franchise. There's a lot of questions hanging in the air for the X-Men franchise in general, and while we may want to know if Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender are returning, we at least now have a general idea on when the next film will be released. The writer and producer of several X-Men films, Simon Kinberg has revealed the basic outline for Fox's superhero releases.
While appearing at the Saturn Awards, Simon Kinberg was asked by That Hashtag Show what was next for the X-Men franchise. Kinberg was understandably tight-lipped about dropping any spoilers, but he was able to give a brief rundown of the current schedule and where the fourth (or seventh, depending on your perspective) X-Men film falls into it.
The first thing up, we're shooting the Wolverine movie right now and we start shooting Deadpool 2 at the beginning of next year, then I sit down and start writing the next of the mainline X-Men movies.
The next Wolverine movie, Hugh Jackman's last hurrah as the iconic X-Man, is already filming right now, and we knew that Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are currently hard at work writing the screenplay for Deadpool 2. It sounds like we'll be getting the next main X-Men film sometime after Deadpool 2. That movie is slated for a 2018 release date, so it feels safe to say that we can expect an X-Men movie later in the same year - assuming that Deadpool 2 is aiming for a February release.
What the next X-Men movie entails is still a mystery, but the after credits scene of Apocalypse suggests that Mr. Sinister will be a villain in some form. We also don't know what cast members will be returning, though the ending of Apocalypse suggested who will be on the main team. However, they completely ignored the ending of Days of Future Past (Mystique disguised as Stryker, Xavier vowing to form the X-Men) so nothing is certain. The film is supposedly taking place in the 90's, but so far that's really all we know.
If you want to see the full interview with Kinberg then check out the video below. He also goes into a little detail about the New Mutants movie and Olivia Munn shows up half way through to agree that Psylocke didn't really do anything in Apocalypse.
This was also a possible confirmation that Simon Kinberg is returning to write the new film, which makes sense. He's a producer on a lot of Fox superhero films, so he's a big creative force behind these movies (Fox's answer to Kevin Feige if you will). Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable, but after Apocalypse, I feel like the X-Men franchise could use some new blood and give Kinberg and Bryan Singer a break. The X-Men films are in need of a pair of fresh eyes.
The next installment in the X-Men franchise is coming eventually and there's sure to be a ton of news about it, so keep it at Cinema Blend for all your X-Men updates.
