When Disney purchased Fox, it was a foregone conclusion that one of the by-products of the merger would be that all those ‘X-Men’ film properties that Fox owned the rights to would eventually fall under the control of Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige. However, before he took the wheel and put his spin on the ‘X-Men’ franchise, Fox was going to release two new films, “Dark Phoenix” and “New Mutants” to close out its run of X-films.
But then came the massive box office failure of “Dark Phoenix,” and suddenly, the once-beloved ‘X-Men’ film franchise is a liability for Disney, leading to a very uncertain future for the entire mutant universe.
According to Variety, the performance of “Dark Phoenix,” which not only was savaged by critics but also posted the worst-ever box office for the franchise, has led to Disney second-guessing the planned release of “New Mutants.”
You see, production problems have plagued “New Mutants” for well over a year, as Fox was even unsure about what to do with the project before the Disney buyout. But once the deal went through, the Mouse House proudly included “New Mutants” as a 2020 release on its slate. But that was before “Dark Phoenix” took the ‘X-Men’ brand and unceremoniously dragged it through the mud, took it behind the shed, and executed it.
Now, the film, which is labeled as a superhero horror film, drawing comparisons to scary PG-13 flicks like “The Conjuring,” has been put under a microscope by Disney and the megastudio is reportedly “unimpressed” by the film and is concerned with its “limited box office potential.” What does that mean? Well, you could think back to those rumors of the film landing on Hulu and see how Disney might be able to dump the film on a streaming service. Or, more harshly, instead of pumping money into finishing the film and toying with further damaging the ‘X-Men’ brand, Disney could just kill it completely.
But that isn’t the end of Disney’s ‘X-Men’ woes. It would appear that the studio is also struggling to figure out what to do with the crown jewel of Fox’s superhero films, “Deadpool.” With fans utterly in love with Ryan Reynolds’ R-rated film series, it was assumed that Disney would just keep the “Deadpool” train moving along and announced a “Deadpool 3” before the rest of the ‘X-Men’ reboot. However, we’ve got a full slate of new Marvel Studios films, with no “Deadpool 3” among them.
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Variety says that Disney is struggling on how to keep Deadpool a foul-mouthed, R-rated hero that can sometimes cross over with the Avengers, which is decidedly PG-13. Fox tried taming the hero down with “Once Upon a Deadpool” last year, but that PG-13 re-release of “Deadpool 2” failed to ignite fan interest and seemingly proved that the magic of the character hinges on his no-holds-barred attitude.
Obviously, “Deadpool 3” (or whatever it eventually is called) will be released at some point. Disney would be stupid not to sign Reynolds and his crew for another film. But it appears that it’s not coming as quickly as fans might have hoped.
All told, what was already damaged goods when Disney purchased Fox, the ‘X-Men’ brand has spiraled into something far worse and is in desperate need of fixing. How or when that happens is really the big question.
