Disney has been very aggressive with its Star Wars plans. There will be a new "Skywalker saga" numbered entry every other year, with a standalone flick in between, on the off years.
According to writer/producer Simon Kinberg, it sounds like Fox is taking a page from Lucasfilm and planning something similar for the X-Men films. Kinberg is, by the way, a producer on both franchises. But how can Fox continue the X-Men saga when the First Class cast's contracts are up as of next summer's X-Men: Apocalypse?
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kinberg explained the long-term X-Men plan. He even referenced Star Wars directly, all but saying it was the inspiration for what's to come with the X-Men.
"We want to keep making [X-Men movies]," he told THR. "What we're doing now is standalone movies with new characters... and then we have the mainline X-Men movies with Professor X, Magneto, Mystique and Beast. I would love to keep making movies with that cast."
Kinberg was referring to the "flagship" cast of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult, who have starred in X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. The "standalone movies" comment was a reference to the upcoming Deadpool and Gambit films, and the third and final Wolverine.
But there's a hurdle in the way of this plan that may be impossible to get past. As Kinberg points out, the contracts for those four actors are up with Apocalypse, which would require negotiating new deals with them.
Jennifer Lawrence is likely to be the main holdout, as she's already stated on the record that she's tired of Mystique's blue makeup, and is ready to be done after three films. Lawrence's star spiked dramatically after the 2011 release of First Class; in 2012, she became a household name thanks to The Hunger Games. Her part in 2014's Days of Future Past was beefed up significantly in acknowledgement of her increased fame.
So if Fassbender, McAvoy and/or Hoult refuse to sign up for more adventures as well, where does that leave Fox's big plan?
It looks like director Bryan Singer is already planning for that possibility. You may have heard that major X-Men characters Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Jubilee have been added to the younger cast with Apocalypse, portrayed by Tye Sheridan, Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp and Lana Condor, respectively. They're being played as teenagers in the next movie, but it's easy to imagine them stepping up to the plate to replace one or more of the departing cast members for future X-films.
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