Like Jennifer Lawrence and James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender‘s contract to star in 20th Century Fox’s ‘X-Men’ franchise of movies is complete. Fassbender starred as Erik Lehnsherr a.k.a. Magneto in 2011’s ‘X-Men: First Class’, 2014’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ (along with Ian McKellan as the older version of Magneto) and this past summer’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ opposite Lawrence’s Mystique and McAvoy’s Professor X. But with the slightly disappointing performance of ‘Apocalypse’ the future of the brand at Fox seems to be in question. Instead of continuing the current movie series, it looks as though the studio is looking to diversify with different potential brands which are still connected to the X-universe, like ‘Deadpool’ and ‘The New Mutants’.
Add to that, the fact that at least Lawrence has become one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, following a string of major hits and an Academy Award win for ‘Silver Linings Playbook,’ it’s unlikely that the studio will want to shell out more money to get this trio back for additional movies, when it seems audiences are wearying of them.
Fassbender was hoping to kickstart a new franchise with ‘Assassin’s Creed’ but that now looks unlikely. Still, the engaging actor should remain in high demand for the foreseeable future. While promoting ‘Assassin’s Creed’, Fassbender was asked about returning as Magneto, to which he replied:
“I don’t know to be honest. I haven’t made any sort of decision on it because I have no idea what’s happening next with the franchise to be honest.”
Even though ‘Apocalypse’ incorporated new, younger versions of favorites like Cyclops and Storm and included a post-credits stinger teasing an upcoming sequel, most figure Fox will focus on other concepts for the next few years and relaunch the core ‘X-Men’ line a few years down the line.
Would you like to see more of Fassbender in the ‘X-Men’ universe? What about McAvoy and Lawrence? Or would you rather they give these characters a breather and recast them later?
Source: Empire Film Podcast
