Daniel Cudmore has announced via Twitter that he will not be playing Colossus in the upcoming ‘Deadpool’ film, a fact that has saddened many fans who not only enjoyed Cudmore’s version of the character (he portrayed Colossus in ‘X2’, ‘X-Men: The Last Stand,’ and ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’), but also saddened fans who had hoped to see the continuity of the X-men universe stay intact despite the franchise’s spins-offs.

Cudmore did not reveal whether it was his decision of the filmmaker’s decision for him not to return, but one cannot help but think the filmmakers made the decision owing to their own desire to work with their own actors. I can’t help but think that Bryan Singer (the man who cast Cudmore) will be particularly happy about the move, especially considering all the work he went through to the restore the continuity of the X-Men universe while also ret-conning the aspects that he and the fans did not particularly care for.

Perhaps this is the first crack in the X-Men universe, showing that 20th Century Fox is just unable to convince its differing film teams to work together to maintain continuity and a coherent universe, which is what made the MCU so popular, and what Warner Bros/DC is trying so desperately to create right now. I’m still hoping ‘Deadpool’ is a decent film, even if just so Ryan Reynold‘s finally has a decent shot at the character, and a chance to show off his talent in a good movie at long last.

But we all know how decisions like this can snowball, causing a downhill slide where every new director can recast character and do whatever they want, leaving fans scratching their heads and wondering why they bother to invest in a character in one of the movies, as the character could be completely different in the next film. Let’s hope this is the only strange creative decision to come out of ‘Deadpool,’ as 20th Century Fox desperately needs the ‘X-Men’ franchise to work.