Movies

The plague of cinematic universes: Fox

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10 January 2018

By Kieran

In a way, 20th Century Fox had the bare bones of shared continuity all the way back in the year 2000 with the release of the first film featuring the X-men, characters purchased from Marvel in the 1990s. Their only mistake was that, distinct from the now familiar Marvel formula, where a run of solo films eventually leads to a team-up movie, every film was the latter with the whole roster of characters present. Also, they were about 8 earlier than the kick-off of the superhero renaissance. Also, none of their films between 2006 and 2011 were any good. So I guess they made three mistakes.

Their 2009 project X-men Origins: Wolverine, was intended as a remedy to this. The plan appeared to be to produce a backtracking sub-franchise of origin films focusing on already beloved household names like the murderer, Wolverine, Jewish Hitler-allegory, Magneto and (worst of all) Halle Berry, Storm. The experience of watching Origins ended up being slightly less appealing than having your fingers set on fire and the stratagem was subsequently binned.

Today, with recent successes with Deadpool and Logan, genre flaunting films that back away from generic superhero stock, this is actually one of the more promising cash-ins aping the MCU’s success. The stealthy switch to a significantly younger main cast also lays the groundwork for potential longevity as well as reducing the franchise’s appearance as a nursing home for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

However, with X-production running on Deadpool 2, New Mutants and Dark Phoenix– all slated for 2018 as well as a planned X-force project (not forgetting the Legion TV series with may or may not be roped in here) it appears Fox has stepped up the X-rate of X-shovelling creatives into their already huge X-engine.

Time will tell if this universe will join the esteemed ranks of precisely one studio that managed it previously, or simply collapse in on itself and add to the already frightening body count. If you will, if it will be an X-Universe or an ex-universe. I regret nothing.

For our autopsy on Sony click here.

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