That sound you’re hearing this morning is 20th Century Fox backing up the money truck. Following “X-Men: Apocalypse,” the franchise contracts for Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy had expired, and there were some big question marks about whether or not they’d continue with more mutant adventures. But apparently, it didn’t take much convincing.
Deadline reports that Lawrence, Fassbender, and McAvoy will all be returning for “X-Men: Dark Phoenix,” along with previous franchise players Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It might seem surprising, but perhaps it was easier to lure Lawrence and Fassbender back after their most recent tentpole efforts, “Passengers” and “Assassin’s Creed” respectively, flopped. As for McAvoy he’s always seemed to be the most keen of the trio to return, and probably doesn’t carry as big of a pricetag. Meanwhile, I’d assume a chance to work with the main trio in a major studio sandbox picture was one of the compelling reasons for Jessica Chastain to sign up.
The film will mark the directorial debut of longtime “X-Men” series writer and producer Simon Kinberg, with production to kick off in Montreal. “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” opens on November 2, 2018.
McAvoy should definitely be getting paid the same as the other pair, he is the only one with a recent box office hit outside of X-Men and probably the most likable of the three. Now that I think of it he has been around a lot longer too, he was in Wanted long before we new who the other two were. In fact they didn’t actually need the other two in this film, the focus should be on Jean, Scott and Prof X.
Passengers made $270,657,489 (Worldwide) with a production cost of $110 mil..it wasn’t mega hit but i won’t call that a flop..and you are right it may have played a part in her decision to return