Avengers: Endgame Writer Reveals Which X-Men Character He Wants to Tackle

Avengers: Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus hopes to one day see beam-eyed X-Man Cyclops done justice on the big screen.

“I’ve always wanted to see Cyclops done with some respect,” Markus told Fandango when asked which formerly Fox-controlled character he’d pick for a movie. “Feel he’s gotten a raw deal.”

The mutant, capable of shooting red concussive blasts from his eyes, was first portrayed by James Marsden in the Bryan Singer-directed X-Men in 2000. Cyclops quickly took a backseat to Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and was unceremoniously killed off in Brett Ratner’s 2006 X-Men: The Last Stand when Marsden followed Singer from Fox to Warner Bros. for Superman Returns.

A teenaged version of Cyclops is now played by Tye Sheridan in the semi-rebooted X-Men prequel series set before the events of the first iteration of the franchise. Sheridan next returns as Cyclops in the 1990s-set Dark Phoenix, the first Fox X-Verse movie to release after Marvel Studios owner Disney purchased Fox’s entertainment assets in a $71.3 billion deal.

The X-Men and all ancillary characters — as well as the formerly Fox-owned Fantastic Four — are now under the purview of Kevin Feige and can be utilized in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, home to such heroes as Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson).

But the band of mutant freedom fighters are still a long way away from an MCU-set X-Men movie.

“It’ll be a while. It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set,” Feige told io9 in April.

“So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”

With Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame completed and in theaters, with Spider-Man: Far From Home to follow in July and end Phase Three of the MCU, Marvel is now developing the Scarlett Johansson-led Black Widow solo movie, ensemble The Eternals under director Chloé Zhao, and Shang-Chi under director Destin Daniel Cretton.

Other future franchise entries in various stages of developments include James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther sequel, and Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange followup.

For now, after writing for Marvel Studios almost exclusively since 2011, Markus and McFeely are taking a break from Marvel.

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