Marvel Studios head executive Kevin Feige recently wrapped up his D23 Meet the Minds Behind the Magic: Disney Worldbuilders panel just a few hours ago, and he might have dropped a pretty big clue about where the X-Men films and the rest of the MCU are headed.
Anyone who knows a thing or two about comics figures Avengers: Secret Wars will hit the giant reset button on the MCU.
But if you’re worried we're just going to get recycled versions of movies Marvel Studios has already made, don't be, as it sounds like the next era is going to feel completely different.
While responding to a question about crafting the MCU, Feige stated, "Having 85, almost 90 years of comic book history, there's so many stories yet to tell. We announced a very young, new cast for a property called X-Men the other day."
After the applause stopped, Feige then followed up on the X-Men cast's youthfulness, implying they'll be playing these characters for a long time by adding, "And that's great, because there's been 10 great X-Men movies [but] there can be 100 more. There's sagas, upon sagas, with these comics that haven't been told yet. And that's great because the stories that inspired me to want to make these kinds of movies haven't been told yet. I'm quite excited about doing them."
With the film hitting theaters, Sadie Sink (24) was officially revealed to be playing Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Ahead of D23, it was also revealed that Kit Connor (22) would be playing Cyclops and that Samara Weaving (34) would portray Emma Frost.
The surprise announcements of Friday night's D23 Marvel panel were the confirmation that Christopher Abbott (40) would be playing Professor X, Inde Navarrette (25) would appear as Rogue, and relative newcomer Maya Boyd (23) would be playing Storm.
Kevin Feige basically confirmed the MCU is taking the X-Men down a completely untrodden path and that likely means Marvel Studios is almost certainly skipping the comic arcs Fox already burned through, a few of which were botched pretty badly the first (and second) time around.
First and foremost, hopefully this means no Phoenix or Dark Phoenix storylines in the MCU, as Fox attempted to tackle the 1970s Chris Claremont miniseries twice with Famke Janssen (2006's X-Men: The Last Stand) and Sophie Turner (2019's Dark Phoenix) and did a subpar job with both attempts.
20th Century Fox did a much better job with Claremont's 1981 miniseries, Days of Future Past, although it took some big liberties with the source material.
Still, if Feige holds true to his above statements, it doesn't sound like the MCU's X-Men saga would produce a more comic-accurate version.
Another Claremont story to rule out would be 1982's God Loves, Man Kills, which served as the main inspiration for X2: X-Men United.
Likewise, Logan (2017) took inspiration from the 2008 Old Man Logan comic by Mark Millar and should be ruled out if Feige is true to his word.
Circling back to Feige's comments, it could be safe to hope that the MCU X-Men movies start to look beyond the Claremont era of the comics and adapt some more modern story arcs, such as those written by Grant Morrison, Jonathan Hickman, Scott Lobdell, Rick Remender, Jason Aaron, and Judd Winick.
He's already strongly hinting at something new with Adam Driver (42) set to play Mr. Sinister, a major X-Men villain who has yet to appear in a live-action feature film.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe X-Men reboot is scheduled to hit theaters on May 5, 2028.