X-Men Star James Marsden Keeps in Touch With Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige

Former Cyclops star James Marsden “occasionally” talks with Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige, who got his start as an associate producer on 2000’s X-Men. Now chief creative officer of Marvel, as well as the shepherd of the interconnected Marvel Cinematic Universe, Feige will act as the creative charge of the X-Men and affiliated mutant characters following parent company Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets, a purchase also bringing the formerly Fox-controlled Deadpool and Fantastic Four properties into the MCU. Should Marsden be asked to reprise his role as Scott Summers, a.k.a. X-Men field leader Cyclops, the actor says he’d “be a fool to say no to that.”

“I look at those three movies I was in and it became a huge part of my life. It was a family, all of them. And I was very grateful,” Marsden told Screen Rant of X-Men, 2003’s X2: X-Men United, and 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. “That’s 40 years, at the time, of back story and iconic characters, beloved characters. So I’d be a fool to say no to that. Of course I would [be open to it].”

Marsden’s answer comes after X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart, who played Cyclops’ mentor Professor Charles Xavier, revealed he had “long, long conversations” about his character with Feige.

“Who knows where that universe goes? Feige is still a friend of mine and we talk occasionally, but you just don’t know where it’s gonna go,” Marsden said. “Right now it’s with all the young ones, it’s all the kiddos. But I never would be opposed to come back to that. I hold a special place in my heart for that experience.”

The 46-year-old actor previously told ComicBook.com he’s “totally open” to another superhero role, this time under Marvel Studios.

Marsden’s Cyclops last made a cameo appearance in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, after a time-traveling Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) made alterations to the past, undoing Cyclops’ untimely death at the hands of corrupted lover Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) in The Last Stand. The role was inherited by Tye Sheridan, who played a younger Scott in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse and last year’s Dark Phoenix, with a brief cameo inDeadpool 2.

In a 2019 interview shortly after Marvel Studios claimed the X-Men rights, Feige admitted it will “be a while” before the mutant superhero team make their way into the MCU.

“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. “So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where 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.”

Marsden stars in Sonic the Hedgehog, now in theaters.