X-Men Franchise to Blend Crossover & Standalone Installments

Since the turn of the millennium, Fox has continued to make movies within their X-Men universe. Throughout most of the nine films, Bryan Singer has been closely involved. He alone has directed X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse, while also serving as some type of producer on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: First Class. Even in the films he was not directly involved in, the carry over from events in his films were felt in some aspect.

However, this universe so far only truly had two franchises up until last year when Deadpool finally got the chance to shine. Until that point, the franchise revolved around the main X-Men storyline or a Wolverine solo film. In their efforts to further explore the grand world at their fingertips, Fox is moving forward with one last Hugh Jackman led film in Logan, as well as Deadpool 2, New Mutants, and the unofficially-titled X-Men: Supernova. As these movies are made, Singer believes the emphasis will stay on crossovers and standalone pictures.

Mashable spoke to Singer about his involvement in the X-Men universe, which he is jumping back into by directing an episode of the upcoming live-action X-Men TV show pilot. After discussing the show itself, Singer was asked for his thoughts on what the films will consist of moving forward. Although he is not as involved right now as in the past, he believes crossovers and standalone films will be the building blocks of this franchise:

Some crossover, is all I can really say. I can’t really speak to that. I come in and out of it, sort of, but I’ve been involved in it for about 20 years — I signed the deal in ’96! I think there’ll just be crossover and standalone. It’s just the right thing to do. The X-Men universe is every bit as big as the rest of the whole Marvel universe, so why not?

For the X-Men universe a blend of crossover and standalone films could come in a number of ways. Whether these “crossovers” are something as small as Wolverine’s cameo in First Class or as big as literally crossing over two timelines with Days of Future Past, there are plenty of interesting ways for them explore the universe fully. Even in their “standalone” films like Deadpool or any of the Wolverine solo pictures, there is still crossover with the X-Men franchise in some capacity. For Deadpool it was visiting X-Mansion and joking about multiple Xaviers, while Logan will actually feature Patrick Stewart’s Professor X to tie everything together.

Hopefully with more franchises potentially coming into this world, the chances are greater that more crossover between franchises can exist. James McAvoy is reportedly making the jump to New Mutants to crossover these two franchises, while everyone from fans to Ryan Reynolds are hoping for Wolverine and Deadpool to have a crossover at some point – something that even the Deadpool writers say can work. As this universe grows, Fox could become more creative with their crossovers, team lineups, or solo adventures. Fans want to see more than just Wolverine and Deadpool centric stories, so something like a Cyclops standalone film that also features appearances from familiar characters could feasibly be a possibility with this plan. That said, only time will tell how Fox plans to move forward with this franchise, with or without Singer.