12 Easy Solutions To Save The X-Men Franchise
It’s not over yet: “in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors.”
It’s no exaggeration to say that, if you’re purely a fan of the X-Men through their movies, then you haven’t really seen the X-Men at all. You’ve seen cardboard cutout versions of some of the characters associated with the X-Men, but not the X-Men themselves.
It’s what comes of the films being propelled by movie producers with an eye on the bottom line rather than enthusiasm for the source material; studio executives with no real love for the premise and the characters, and so no interest in recreating that feeling in a new, global audience.
Deadpool - made with passion and unswerving commitment by a writer, director and star who refused to take no for an answer, is the most successful film in the X-Men franchise to date. X-Men: Apocalypse, on the other hand, touted as bigger and better after the breakout critical and commercial success of X-Men: Days Of Future Past, only did two-thirds the numbers of its predecessor.
Why? Because word of mouth told everyone that it was another made-by-committee crapfest - what one reviewer called “gliding, passionless mediocrity” - and featured a director and cast that appeared burned out and bored by the whole thing.
I’m no Marvel fanatic that claims that sticking slavishly to the source material is the answer: but understanding why the source material resonated so strongly with people should be the first step in considering any adaptation… and especially how to save a franchise that’s nosediving, and make it soar again.
12. Stop Making Prequels To Films That Don’t Exist
The third prequel in the franchise (yes, the first Wolverine movie counts), X-Men: Days Of Future Past’s time travel shenanigans ultimately altered the X-Men franchise’s timeline, course-correcting after the disastrous public reaction to the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.
Despite this, the next film in the series, X-Men: Apocalypse, was yet another prequel… which begs the question, prequel to what? It’s not been made clear whether the changes to the timeline still result in the events of X-Men and X-2: what we do know is that people killed in X-Men:The Last Stand are still alive as a consequence of X-Men: Days Of Future Past.
Are we now in uncharted territory, making X-Men movies set in the increasingly recent past, as Xavier and Magneto meet up every ten years to bicker over the same old rubbish like exes at a family barbecue?
It’s already beginning to come off as stupid. Neither Magneto nor Xavier look any older in the eighties than they did in the sixties, and in X-Men: Apocalypse Quicksilver is, ten years after his debut in X-Men: Days Of Future Past, still exactly the same age and living in his mother’s basement. And ten years is a sod of a long time. What else have they been up to?
Continuity is also falling by the wayside through sheer laziness. Technology is light years ahead of where it should be in decades past, and lip service is paid to past fashions and a few historical events, rather than whole cultural paradigms.
Moreover, people are still narked that central characters introduced in X-Men: First Class are murdered between films, and there’s never been a satisfactory explanation as to how Xavier is restored to life between the events of X-Men: The Last Stand and The Wolverine, or how Wolverine ends up in the Weapon X facility in X-Men: Apocalypse when at the end of X-Men: Days Of Future Past he was being rescued by Mystique.
The simplest way to fix all of this narrative damage - without going the scorched earth route of the complete reboot - is to begin telling contemporary X-Men stories again.