Draft:Mutant (Marvel Comics) in film

Film adaptations of Marvel Comics featuring mutants date back to as early as 1994, when 20th Century Fox acquired the feature film and television rights to the X-Men team and associated characters from Marvel for $2.6 million USD after several unsuccessful attempts to adapt the property at other film studios and distributors throughout the prior decade. Fox released X-Men in 2000 to critical and commercial success, with the film being credited for rejuvenating mainstream interest in movies featuring and adapting comic book characters alongside other licensed Marvel films released earlier in the decade. X-Men's success allowed the studio to launch a film franchise centered on the team and associated characters which included a trilogy with the initial cast until 2006, four prequel films (2011-19), a trilogy of Wolverine films (2009-2017), two Deadpool films (2016-18) and the spin-off film The New Mutants (2020), which concluded 20th Century Fox's franchise after a two-decade run.

In 2005, Marvel Studios was formed as an independent arm of the company that intended to house the production of various films using Marvel Comics characters, leading to the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise. Marvel was later acquired by The Walt Disney Company in December 2009 for $4 billion USD, but did not regain the film rights to the X-Men comic books due to Fox's existing licensing deal, barring the team and associated characters from appearing in the MCU or other internally-produced Marvel media. In March 2019, Disney completed their acquisition of 21st Century Fox for a final total of $71.3 billion USD in order to secure 20th Century Fox's various entertainment licenses, including the film rights to the X-Men alongside the Fantastic Four and Deadpool. Control over the characters' film appearances was transferred to Marvel Studios, leading to multiple Marvel-based films at Fox to be stalled and subsequently cancelled, with plans to instead integrate the respective properties into the MCU franchise.

Development

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Nelvana/Orion Pictures

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In 1982, Nelvana optioned the film rights to the X-Men comics from Marvel Entertainment. As early as 1979, Marvel's former vice president of business affairs Alice Donnenfeld Vernoux, had been tasked by former editor-in-chief Stan Lee with attempting to license off various Marvel Comics properties for adaptation in film and television in light of recent blockbuster successes such as Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977) and Superman (1978). Nelvana founder Michael Hirsh had expressed significant interest in adapting X-Men for live-action film as a fan of the source material, and Nelvana, a studio primarily known for animated television, was similarly transitioning towards theatrical releases with their first animated feature Rock & Rule (1983).[1] The deal between Marvel and Nelvana stipulated that the latter studio would handle production duties on the film, while Marvel would handle responsibilities in merchandising and promotion.[2]

Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants writer Chris Claremont was hired by Hirsh to pen the film's screenplay, ultimately producing two story outlines. Both outlines featured a team roster comprising Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Wolverine alongside Professor X and Kitty Pryde as a new member.[3] The first version of the film, tentatively titled Rite of Passage and dated for June 1982, featured Kitty Pryde as the audience surrogate character as she navigated the X-Men's world and came into conflict with her father, who became possessed by the mutant Proteus and exercised his political influence to incite mutant prejudice. Pryde would've helped the X-Men save a captive Xavier and redeem her father by the end of the film. The second outline, dated for 1983, de-emphasized Pryde's significance in favor of a plot that broadly explored the physical and ideological conflict between the X-Men and their adversaries, the Brotherhood of Mutants led by Magneto. Set during the Cold War, the narrative would've depicted Magneto using his powers to, raise an island from the ocean, destroy a Soviet submarine, and set off a volcano as an intimidation tactic. His tactics would've almost resulted in Pryde's death, at which point he saw the errors of his ways and sought redemption by the film's conclusion.[4][5]

The film's production eventually stalled as Claremont chose to prioritize his work on the X-Men comic books in addition to writing novels. Nelvana then brought on Marvel Comics writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway to take over scripting duties, with Conway later admitting he wasn't aware of Claremont's prior involvement.[6] At this point in the project, Nelvana had secured a deal to distribute the film through Orion Pictures, and two producers had boarded the project. Thomas and Conway's first draft combined elements across Claremont's two previous outlines, including Kitty as the primary point-of-view character for the world of mutants and Proteus as the primary antagonist from the first treatment, as well as a battle between the X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood from the second treatment.[7] According to Conway, the attached producers were dissatisfied with their initial draft and had commissioned a rewrite that notably deviated further from the source material than originally intended, removing elements previously present such as the X-Mansion, the social commentary on mutant injustices, and the omission of any references or terminology related to mutants entirely due to the implicit comparison to monsters which would've made the film harder to market as an allegory for marginalization. Jean Grey's presence in the film was replaced with an original character with the power of transforming materials as a team member, inspired by Japanese New Wave cinema in an attempt to market the film towards Japanese investors. Bernie, another original character, was written into the film as a sidekick for Kitty Pryde in order to pivot the film's focus away from her in favor of capturing more interest from a younger male audience.[8] The film would ultimately cease production due to Orion Pictures' ongoing financial troubles throughout 1985, leading Nelvana to eventually relinquish the character rights to Marvel.[9]

Carolco Pictures

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Following the critical and commercial success of the Warner Bros. Pictures film Batman (1989), Marvel sought to rejuvenate interest in licensing out their comic book properties for film adaptation, with filmmaker James Cameron being approached to produce a live-action X-Men film for Carolco Pictures through his production studio Lightstorm Entertainment. Cameron's then-wife Kathryn Bigelow was expected to direct the film, while Gary Goldman had been attached to write the screenplay.[10] Goldman's script, tentatively titled Wolverine and the X-Men, depicted Logan recruiting Kitty Pryde into the X-Men alongside Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Mastermind, all of whom are now facilitated at "Exton Academy" as opposed to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The plot would've involved the X-Men's confrontation with a wealthy socialite and preacher Tommy Prince, who would've assembled "The Citizens' Crusade" to incite anti-mutant sympathies from the general public, at which point Mastermind would betray the team to side with his ideologies.[11] Prince would later be revealed to be disguising his own mutant heritage, being depicted as an original take on the Magneto character with similar powers and a motivation to oppress humanity.[12] X-Men writer Chris Claremont later recalled that in attempting to engage James Cameron on the film, the film was immediately de-prioritized as soon as Stan Lee instead inquired him on his interest in adapting Spider-Man to film. Kathryn Bigelow later produced her own treatment for an X-Men film unrelated to Goldman's screenplay, with the intent of casting Bob Hoskins and Angela Bassett as Wolverine and Storm, respectively, but it was immediately dismissed due to Cameron's increased interest in a Spider-Man feature.[13][14] Cameron's Spider-Man film would similarly never materialize as a result of Carolco becoming embroiled in a dispute over the ownership of the character's film rights between themselves, Marvel and distributor 21st Century Films, before all three entities declared bankruptcy, with both the X-Men and Spider-Man feature film rights reverting to Marvel upon their re-emergence in the late 1990's.[15]

20th Century Fox

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Marvel entered early discussions with Columbia Pictures regarding a live-action X-Men film in 1992 just as the studio was also entering development on a Black Panther film, but the movie didn't materialize past these conversations.[16] Instead, 20th Century Fox separately engaged Marvel about acquiring the character rights, having been impressed by the success of X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-97) on their sister network Fox Kids during syndication, and film producer Lauren Shuler Donner successfully acquired the license to develop the film at Fox in 1994.[17] Donner brought on Andrew Kevin Walker to screenwrite the project, with two drafts of the script delivered by the following June. Walker's storyline involved the government initiating the Mutant Registration Act in response to a terrorist attack orchestrated by Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, which comprised of Toad, Blob, Sabretooth and Juggernaut, who would be broken out of Ryker's Island by the trio and recruited into their ranks. The film would heavily center around the X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman and Angel) and their efforts to recruit Wolverine and Jubilee, as well as the human antagonists Bolivar Trask and Henry Peter Gyrich, as the pair construct Sentinels to eliminate mutants.[18] The screenplay also included other elements of the comics such as Department H being Wolverine and Sabretooth's former unit in Canada, the X-Copter, the Danger Room training facility, the Vault as a supermax prison for superhumans, and Magneto establishing a safe haven for mutants conceptually similar to Genosha after taking over Manhattan.[19] Film producer Laeta Kalogridis performed rewrites on Walker's story throughout 1995, and introduced Storm to the team roster, setting up a subplot exploring a potential romantic relationship with Wolverine.[20] Author and Spider-Man 2 (2004) co-screenwriter Michael Chabon submitted his own treatment to Fox in 1996, which featured a team roster of Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Nightcrawler and Storm, and omitted the Brotherhood of Mutants as antagonists in favor of setting them up in a potential sequel.[21]

Singer-Ratner trilogy

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X-Men (2000)

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When a young teen named Rogue goes on the run and crosses paths with cage fighter Logan / Wolverine, the pair are suddenly embroiled in an intense conflict over their fate as mutants, individuals who are born with a unique gene that grants them superhuman abilities and augmentations. They are recruited into the X-Men, a team of mutants who fight for the preservation of mutantkind while upholding their leader Charles Xavier's ideology of peaceful co-existence with humanity, despite facing discrimination and prejudice from them in their efforts to protect them. The X-Men, also comprising field leader Cyclops, telepath Jean Grey and and weather manipulator Storm, face off against the mutant extremist Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, who threaten to mutate world leaders in an attempt to escalate his plans for supremacy over humans.[22]

X2 (2003)

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After a failed assassination attempt on the President of the United States by a brainwashed teleporting mutant named Nightcrawler, anti-mutant military scientist Col. William Stryker is enlisted to stage an attack on Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, kidnapping Cyclops and Charles Xavier alongside several mutant children and encountering Wolverine, revealed to be his former test subject during the Weapon X program. The remaining X-Men form a reluctant alliance with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants in order to infiltrate Stryker's base at Alkali Lake and prevent Stryker from using Cerebro and the captive Xavier to telepathically kill every mutant on Earth, while Logan uncovers more about his shrouded past.[23][24]

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

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When the United States government manufactures a "cure" for the mutant gene, the mutant population is left divided on its potential benefits and repercussions. Magneto assembles a faction of mutants strongly opposed to its distribution to declare war on humanity, claiming their intent to use the cure as a means of further marginalizing the mutant race. As the X-Men confront Magneto and the morality behind the government's intentions, their formerly deceased team member Jean Grey is resurrected as the Phoenix, a destructive, evil entity within her mind that threatens to destroy both mutants and humanity on a far greater scale. As the vulnerable Grey is torn between her allegiance to the X-Men and Magneto's manipulation, the team prepare for a final battle which will decide her fate, and their own.[25]

Vaughn-Singer series

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X-Men: First Class (2011)

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During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, fresh university graduate and mutant expert Charles Xavier is recruited by the CIA to a top-secret project known as "Division X" as a liason between human officals and the emerging mutant population. He, alongside new colleague Erik Lensherr, who occupies a more exclusivist view of mutant-human relations, are tasked with assembling a strike force comprised of young mutants as a first line of defense against the Hellfire Club, a secret society led by Sebastian Shaw which threatens to provoke a third World War and trigger an ascendancy of the mutant race over a massacred human population.[26][27]

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

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In a dystopian 2023, mutants are endlessly hunted by the Sentinels, artificially intelligent humanoid machines designed to kill them by instantaneously adapting to their varied powers. In order to reverse this future, a team of surviving X-Men led by Charles Xavier and Magneto send Wolverine back in time to 1973, tasking him with preventing the assassination of the Sentinels' creator, Bolivar Trask by a young Mystique which accelerated the development and mass-production of the weapons systems. In order to succeed, Logan must track down the younger incarnations of Xavier and Magneto in the hopes that their combined presence would help dissuade Mystique from her goals while also averting the cataclysmic future they all face.[28][29]

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

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In 1983, Apocalypse, considered in legend as the world's most ancient mutant, awakens from a deep slumber spanning thousands of years and intends to wage war with the modern world upon being disillusioned with what society had developed towards in his absence. He travels across the world recruiting Storm, Angel, Psylocke and Magneto as his four Horsemen, in order to cleanse all of humanity in favor of a new world order where mutants are dominant. Mystique and Professor X lead a new generation of X-Men in order to prevent Apocalypse's planned destruction of all mankind.[30]

Dark Phoenix (2019)

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In 1992, the X-Men are well regarded as superheroes to the public and are constantly sent on missions in order to improve their public image at the behest of Professor X. One fateful mission ends in disarray when Jean Grey accidentally absorbs the Phoenix Force during a space excursion, rendering her abilities heightened and uncontrollable as she develops destructive tendencies under the influence of Vuk, a member of the D'Bari race whose home planet was previously destroyed by the Phoenix Force, who now intends to use Grey's awakened power to enact revenge.[31]

Spin-off films

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Generation X (1996)

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Rebel teenager Jubilation Lee is rescued and given refuge at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters by its headmasters Sean Cassidy / Banshee and Emma Frost, alongside five other displaced, young mutants who have had their powers manifested in public. They are taught to control, cope with and hone their powers as they simultaneously struggle to process the adversity they now face from humans in the local area, while also forming a team to face a mutant-obssessed mad scientist who seeks out their unique genetics in the hopes of acquiring his own abilities.

Generation X was the first live-action property produced by Fox after acquiring the rights to develop X-Men films, and remains the only made-for-television feature film featuring mutant characters, being initially produced as a television pilot either for an eventual full series, or further films.[32] The movie was originally broadcast on the Fox network as part of their Fox Tuesday Night at the Movies programming block.[33][34]

Wolverine film trilogy (2009-2017)

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

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The origin story of James "Logan" Howlett / Wolverine. When a young Logan manifests his mutant abilities during puberty and goes on the run with his half-brother Victor Creed, the two involve themselves in the early stages of mutant publicity when they are recruited by Col. William Stryker into an all-mutant black ops unit codenamed "Team X". Years later, the murder of Logan's wife Kayla Silverfox propels him into a quest for revenge that sees him first bonded with adamantium during intense experimentation, making him completely indestructible and more formidable as he prepares to confront his former teammates and face a great adversary.[35]

The Wolverine (2013)

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Years after he regretfully killed Jean Grey, a nomadic Logan is living as a recluse when he is brought to Japan for a reunion with Ichiro Yashida, whom he saved during the Nagasaki bombing while serving as a POW in 1945. When his regenerative healing factor is mysteriously stolen, Logan must travel across the country accompanied by Yashida Clan ninja Yukio, to protect family heir Mariko Yashida from local threats such as ninjas and yakuza dispatched from opposing factions, while trying to uncover a plot regarding himself, the empire Yashida built and a plot to prolong their grip on the country for the future.[36][37]

Logan (2017)

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In 2029, an aged, weathered Logan lives on the outskirts of society with Caliban and a dying Charles Xavier, whom he must care for after a telepathic seizure from the former professor eradicated the majority of mutants, including most of the X-Men years earlier. When Logan meets a young girl named Laura and is tasked with escorting her to a safe haven near the Canadian-American Border, they are relentlessly hunted by the Reavers, a group of augmented cyborgs dispatched by the Alkali-Transigen corporation, the biotechnology firm that created Laura to be the former Wolverine's superior.[38][39]

Deadpool films (2016-18)

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Deadpool (2016)

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Former Canadian Special Forces affiliate and operating mercenary Wade Wilson is afflicted with a sudden terminal cancer, causing him to pursue and undergo a tortourous experiment that awakens his mutant gene while permanently disfiguring his face. Donning a costume and assuming the alias "Deadpool", Wilson embarks on a journey to hunt down Ajax, the man responsible for triggering his abilities who has since kidnapped his girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle, while X-Men members Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead attempt to dissuade him from going down a path of selfish vengeance.[40]

No Good Deed (2017)

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Wade Wilson attempts to save an old man from an oncoming mugger, but fails upon taking too long to change into his costumed persona as Deadpool.[41]

Deadpool 2 (2018)

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After losing his girlfriend Vanessa in a botched asssassination attempt, A depressed Wade Wilson is given the opportunity to atone for his mistakes when tasked with protecting a young mutant named Russell Collins, who is fated to become a tyrannical dictator in a far-off, dystopian future, when the time traveler Cable arrives in the present in order to kill him and avert his future. Enlisting the help of his friends Weasel and Dopinder, as well as Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Wilson assembles a team of capable mutants to simultaneously stop Cable and potentially dissuade Collins from going down a dark path.[42]

Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)

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Wade Wilson recounts the story of how he successfully redeemed Russell Collins, stopped Cable and found his personal sense of self-worth in the form of a family-friendly bedtime tale read to Fred Savage.[43]

The New Mutants (2020)

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Five young mutants--Dani Moonstar, Illyana Rasputina, Roberto da Costa, Rahne Sinclair and Sam Guthrie, find themselves banded together in a psychiatric ward under the watchful eye of supervising doctor Ceciila Reyes, where they question the motives behind their predicament and face their traumatized pasts, which manifest in the form of a bear monster that terrorizes each of them with their worst fears and sins.[44]

Marvel Studios

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In 2004, Marvel Enterprises announced plans to restructure their operations to accomodate their intent for transitioning towards self-financing theatrical films using their characters as opposed to retaining a licensing-only model with other production studios.[45][46] Newly formed as Marvel Entertainment, the company established Marvel Studios in 2005 and entered a nonrecourse debt arrangement with investment firm Merill Lynch, that granted them $525 million in budgeting to produce a 10-film slate around a selection of properties for which they still possessed the film rights.[47] After initially approaching Universal Pictures as a distribution partner for their films due to their existing possession of the Hulk and Namor film rights,[48][49] they began negotiations with Paramount Pictures, who would end up securing the final deal to distribute the ten projects under the agreement with Merill Lynch.[50] The first film produced by Marvel Studios, Iron Man (2008) was both a critical and financial success, while The Incredible Hulk, released in partnership with Universal the same year, enjoyed comparatively lesser but decent reactions, with both films launching Marvel's long-term plan for individual character films that comprised what would become the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), culminating in the crossover film The Avengers (2012).[51] During the production of the first set of MCU films, The Walt Disney Company entered an agreement to acquire Marvel in its entirety in August 2009,[52] with said transaction completing that December.[53] Disney secured the rights to over 5,000 Marvel Comics characters at the time in licensing, merchandising, publishing and film production, which included all distribution rights to future Marvel Studios and MCU films after the company's existing deals with Paramount Pictures lapsed, beginning with The Avengers in 2012.[54][55] However, the acquisition did not secure Disney any feature film rights pertaining to the X-Men due to the pre-existing arrangement with 20th Century Fox from 1994.[56]

The lack of access to the X-Men license, which covered the various iterations of the team, various terminology, characters and organizations related to mutants in the Marvel Universe, as well as other associated characters primarily featured in X-Men comics, meant that Marvel Studios was initially barred from integrating these elements into the MCU franchise during The Infinity Saga arc (2008-2019), and that concessions would have to be made in order to adapt characters or scenarios adjacent to mutants in their films where applicable.[57] The original version of Iron Man's post-credits scene was intended to depict Nick Fury alluding to the existence of mutants alongside Spider-Man and the Hulk when discussing the bigger world that Tony Stark / Iron Man had just become a part of, but the final scene would remove said references due to Fox and Sony Pictures' respective ownership of the X-Men and Spider-Man film rights.[58] In The Incredible Hulk, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross extracts an experimental replica of the Super Soldier Serum to use on Emil Blonsky, from a storage lab container that references its origins in "Weapon Plus", a clandestine program dedicated to enhancing humans that was introduced by Grant Morrison and Igor Kordey in New X-Men #128 (August 2002), beginning with the Super Soldier initiative that created Steve Rogers / Captain America and Korean War veteran Isaiah Bradley, and later spun off into the Weapon X program for recruiting or capturing various mutants and turning them into agents serving national government interests, with its most notable subjects being Wolverine, Sabretooth and Deadpool among others.[59][60] The origin of Steve Rogers / Captain America, retroactively established in Morrison's New X-Men run as "Weapon I", would be depicted in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).[61][62] The film Thor (also 2011) originally featured an alternate ending that depicted Erik Selvig, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis running a series of tests to establish communication between Earth and Asgard, with Selvig referencing a database belonging to the organization S.W.O.R.D.. This ending was believed to have been omitted partially due to complications with the organization's film rights, as despite its origins as a cosmic-focused branch of S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization also held strong ties to mutant characters such as Abigail Brand and often comprised a rotating roster of other mutants affiliated with the X-Men and adjacent teams, being created for the 2004-08 run on Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday.[63]

In May 2013, Whedon, who had previously directed and co-written The Avengers, announced his intentions to introduce the characters Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in the film's sequel, later titled Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), remarking on the characters' potential to represent "the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers", in addition to establishing a unique "brother/sister duo" dynamic that distinguished them from the other protagonists.[64] Ownership over the character rights was a subject of dispute between Marvel and 20th Century Fox, as both characters were conceived in The X-Men #4 (March 1964) as mutant adversaries who were affiliated with the Brotherhood of Mutants that opposed the X-Men, and they were subsequently revealed to be the offspring of Erik Lensherr / Magneto, leading to Fox claiming complete control over their film adaptations. Likewise, Marvel and Disney asserted ownership due to their broader editorial history tying the pair narratively closer to the Avengers mythos than X-Men comics, with both characters joining the team's second incarnation led by Captain America in The Avengers #16 (March 1965), and subsequently becoming affiliated with spun off teams such as the West Coast Avengers, the female-oriented A-Force and the Uncanny Avengers, in addition to Wanda Maximoff playing a central role in the "Disassembled" storyline which saw the traditional team roster completely dissolved, the "House of M" crossover event where the Avengers and X-Men witnessed the depowering of virtually the entire mutant population by her reality warping abilities, and her return to the team during "The Children's Crusade."[65] Both studios eventually reached terms that allowed them to co-opt the film rights to the Maximoff twins, on the stipulation that Marvel Studios could not depict them as mutants or reference their familial heritage towards Magneto, while Fox could not adapt stories featuring the characters working alongside the Avengers. A reimagined version of Quicksilver named Peter Maximoff would debut in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) portrayed by Evan Peters, and would subsequently appear in its sequels X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019) in addition to a cameo appearance in Deadpool 2 (2018).[66][67][68][69] Allusions to his sibling relationship towards Wanda Maximoff were cut from Days of Future Past before being restored in film's extended "Rogue Cut" release, and she ultimately went unused by Fox for the remainder of the X-Men films.[70][71][72] Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were respectively cast as Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff for the MCU franchise in late 2013,[73][74] and made their first appearances as the characters in the post-credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) to set up their roles in Age of Ultron. In the MCU, the Maximoffs are depicted as humans who were given their respective psionic and super-speed abilities through a series of experiments conducted by HYDRA.[75] While Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver is killed during the events of Age of Ultron, Wanda's role is expanded through her subsequent appearances in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).[76][77] The Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021) fully explores the origins and breadth of Wanda's powers in an attempt to bridge the character closer towards her comic book counterpart, such as addressing her history of mental illness and notably officially introducing the Scarlet Witch moniker in the MCU after prior appearances had refrained from addressing the character by that identity.[78] The series also establishes Wanda as possessing chaos magic abilities from birth as a natural sorceress as opposed to it being sourced from a latent mutant gene,[79] and that the "Scarlet Witch" title referred to a legend of those capable of reality-warping and creating destructive magic that runs spontaneously, of which Wanda was identified as one such individual.[80] The film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) also depicts her being capable of harnessing magic from the corrupted Darkhold, such as "dream walking" by possessing her alternate counterparts, power absorption and physical augmentation.[81]

On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced their intentions to acquire 21st Century Fox for a starting bid of $52.4 billion USD in stock, in an effort to secure 20th Century Fox's various film and television studios in addition to its entertainment licenses,[82] which included the film rights to the X-Men alongside the Fantastic Four and Deadpool.[83][84] In September 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that the aforementioned Marvel Comics characters owned by Fox were to be fully integrated into the MCU franchise following the acquisition, feeling strongly that Marvel should retain supervision over all its franchises.[85] Following a brief bidding war with Comcast, the merger was finalized and closed on March 20, 2019 at a final total of $71.3 billion USD.[86] X-Men film series producer Lauren Shuler Donner announced in February that Disney had put Fox's various Marvel-based projects in development "on hold", and that she wished for the franchise to go in a new direction under the leadership of Marvel Studios producer Kevin Feige, who previously collaborated with her on the original X-Men film trilogy.[87] By mid-2019, all of Fox's Marvel IP films had been canceled as control over the characters had been completely transferred to Marvel Studios.[88] During their Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019, Kevin Feige announced that the mutant race was slated to be introduced in the MCU in the future.[89] In a post-panel interview conducted that same day, Feige was inquired regarding his reference to mutants as opposed to explicitly identifying the X-Men team, responding that he considered the terms 'mutants' and 'X-Men' interchangeable, and that Marvel's approach to the characters would differ from their depiction in Fox's film series.[90] In January 2021, Feige again reiterated that positive discussions were taking place regarding integrating mutant characters in the MCU, and that they had a good idea of when they could begin exploring the characters and mythos.[91] While promoting Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in February 2023, Feige clarified that Marvel Studios now had a solidified plan to introduce mutants in the franchise following the introductions of Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel and Namor as among the MCU's earliest identfied mutants, stating that they had been working on timing how and when they'd feature the race more prominently for years.[92] At the world premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine in July 2024, Feige officially confirmed that the film marked the beginning of the MCU's "mutant era", with mutants set to appear more prominently in projects within the franchise going forward.[93] Since 2022, mutants have featured in various Marvel Cinematic Universe films.[94]

Unrealized projects

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References

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