If the recent murmurings are anything to go by, then Dark Phoenix could be about to end Fox’s X-Men saga on a whimper rather than a bang, but like the aforementioned bird, the franchise looks set to rise from the ashes as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And while it remains unclear what Kevin Feige has in store for Wolverine and his peers, one Reddit user claims to have inside knowledge on the matter from a “close personal source.”
Though Marvel Studios doesn’t have the legal go-ahead to start developing projects with their new Fox acquisitions quite yet, user Ixconkid claims that the studio intends to deliver some solo X-Men movies, giving the standalone treatment to various mutants who generally played second fiddle under Fox.
Naturally, the report has been met with some skepticism, including from one user who argues that the X-Men are defined as a team, and that solo projects would risk overcrowding an already busy schedule for the MCU. In response, Ixconkid points out that some of Marvel’s current major players are likely to be out of the franchise by the time the Fox characters come along, and that the upcoming Disney Plus service will allow the studio to increase the volume of its output well beyond their big screen projects.
In a final tease, Ixconkid adds that anyone who doesn’t like these alleged plans is definitely not going to like what Feige has in mind for Wolverine, which is a vague enough hint to mean anything from giving Logan a solo project to ignoring him completely.
All in all, it’s best to approach these comments with a pretty sizeable grain of salt, though Ixconkid has previously earned some credibility by sharing a Captain Marvel still before it had been released anywhere else. In any case, it could be a long wait before we find out Marvel Studios’ plans for the X-Men and their other newly acquired properties, but in the meantime, the MCU is hardly at a loss for heroes.