Five X-Men Spinoffs That Could Come After X-Force

So the word has come down through the grapevine, and been apparently confirmed by Rob Liefeld, that 20th Century Fox will announce major X-plans at their panel later this week at San Diego Comic Con International. What plans? Well, they apparently start with an X-Force movie, which will begin shooting once the studio is done with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2) is rumored to be attached as a writer and possibly director, and it's probably safe to assume that it will be produced by Wadlow, Mark Millar, Bryan Singer, Matthew Vaughn and Rob Liefeld, for various reasons. The grand, epic finale of Singer's X-Menverse may also mean the end, for the time being, of X-Men films as a team event. Rumors have been out there for a while that solo films for Deadpool and Magneto would launch out of the "X-Men Origins" brand, a la the Wolverine movie from a few years back. Those rumors also got a shot in the arm this week from sources who claim to be in the know. If it's true that they're kicking off a whole franchise of new, non-X-Men X-Men films, it could be interesting to see what comes next. Some of our choices are below.

X-Statix The reality TV-friendly super-team who briefly went by the name X-Force were some of the most interesting X-characters of the last twenty years, and the omnibus collection of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's work is indispensible comics. Of course, what makes for good comics and what makes for good movies aren't always the same thing, and it could be challenging adapting something so genre-savvy and occasionally tongue-in-cheek to film. Somebody like Wadlow (who has similar experience with Kick-Ass) might be a good candidate to try it, though. X-Factor With Peter David's run coming to a close, it's almost a foregone conclusion that somebody will reboot X-Factor soon. But what of those characters that David did so well with for so long and, frankly, that only he could love? Well, the Madrox miniseries that kicked off X-Factor and the idea of "X-Factor Investigations" gives the team a unique motivation and sets up some potentially interesting set of challenges if they wanted to explore a slightly more real-world interpretation of things where the government (typically hostile to mutants in these films) is involved with overseeing and regulating the team's "private investigations." It also gives them something that a superhero team has never really had: an excuse to be hanging out in the headquarters waiting for bad stuff to happen.

Generation X They've really never taken full advantage of the idea that the Xavier School is...well...a school. Using some of the trappings of teen films, they could have a movie that uses somewhat more comic relief as well as some young, as-yet-unknown actors who could build a career through the franchise and thus eventually be famous people who are underpaid in the last film or two of their contracts. Hey, it worked with Jennifer Lawrence. Story-wise, it would be interesting, too. It would allow the filmmakers to keep old characters around (cameos by professors X-Man Depending on how the time-travel elements of Days of Future Past work out, it's distinctly possible that the studio might want a sequel-in-principle to that film, and where better to start than with the Age of Apocalypse? How we got there would have to be simpler than in the comics, but using Nate Grey--aka X-Man--would be an interesting exercise because it would both incorporate an element of Cable (who will appear in X-Force, reportedly) and the X-Men "brand" name. Bringing together an alternate version of an existing character with yet another alternate universe might be a little much for the casual fans, though, so as much as this movie COULD work, don't expect them to necessarily try it. Plus, The Sugar Man wouldn't look great on camera.

Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch Do they really, really want to stick it to Disney and Marvel? Well, here's a good way to start. Rumor has it the Mouse House can't use the characters' code names in their films, only the names Wanda and Pietro--but that Fox can. So...would Fox want to make a movie that ties into Magneto by filling us in a bit on his kids? Certainly it could be an interesting film, and certainly it's hard to imagine a way to more effectively vex Disney/Marvel. Of course, that would again tie things into Days of Future Past, which may or may not set a new status quo. A direct sequel might be harder to do than it seems...