The MCU is firing on all cylinders again, buoyed by the success of Deadpool & Wolverine. There’s a renewed feeling of hype from Marvel Studios, as there are multiple projects coming down the pipe that have fans excited again. The biggest are yet to come, though. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige made a live virtual appearance at the opening of the Disney APAC Showcase (via Deadline), hyping up the coming days of the MCU. He started out talking about Fantastic Four: First Steps, but soon revealed that X-Men would begin debuting in the next few films, culminating in Secret Wars and bringing a new age to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Feige talked about the coming developments on the X-Men side of things, saying, “I think you will see that continues in our next few movies with some X-Men players that you might recognize. Right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men. Again, [it’s] one of those dreams come true. We finally have the X-Men back.”
Feige then brought up Deadpool & Wolverine. ““When we first started working on the film for the first time, we wanted to see Wolverine in a yellow costume,” Feige said. “I had goosebumps on set when he walked out wearing that costume and put on that mask for the first time. I’ve been waiting 25 years to bring that to life.”
Feige has hyped up the X-Men’s MCU debut for a while now, but this is the clearest indication of just how important they’re going to the future of the MCU. With the big stars of the first three Phases having mostly ridden off into the sunset, Marvel needs to build something to keep the fans coming back and the X-Men are perfect for that. While the Fox era of X-Men movies ended mostly badly, the characters have a huge following and when done right, as evidenced by X-Men ’97‘s success, the fans will come out in force to support to them.
The MCU has definitely been in a rebuilding phase for a while now, trying to find a new identity without big names like Robert Downy Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’s Captain America. The former unassailable cinematic juggernaut has actually had failures, and Phase 4 and Phase 5 struggled mightily, up until recently. The X-Men – and the Fantastic Four – are the shot in the arm the MCU needs to get back on top. Add in a future Miles Morales debut, and the future of the MCU is looking as rosy as ever.
