It's public knowledge that Fox plan on keeping their grubby little hands on the X-franchise for as long as possible - and that's just fine, for now, as half the films they've created under the banner have been pretty solid. Fox also have a number of plans in the works for the future of their franchise; we've got the Deadpool film next month, Gambit next year, a planned New Mutants' film - which will probably just be about this new, younger cast of Cyclops, Jean et al - and the long-gestating X-Force flick (which has admittedly gone a bit quiet in recent months). The problem with Fox having so many of these plans is their temptation to start setting them all up with X-Men: Apocalypse. Many of you will be familiar with this tactic as one of the problems that plagued Avengers: Age of Ultron, a film which ended up feeling like a bunch of trailers for Phase Three of the MCU. If Fox don't resist that temptation, X-Men: Apocalypse could end up being packed full of a bunch of wink-wink-nuge-nudge hints that ruin the pacing of the film, not to mention the illusion of it all. After all, during Age of Ultron, nothing reminded me I was watching a film more than when Ulysses Klaw turned up for no damn reason. "Oh!", I thought. "He's going to be the bad guy in Black Panther in three years!". Great.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
