Deadpool & Wolverine Leaves Fox’s X-Men Franchise in Weird Place with MCU
Deadpool & Wolverine feels like a fond farewell to the 20th Century Fox era of X-Men movies... but maybe it's not?
This article has Deadpool & Wolverine spoilers galore.
Going into Deadpool & Wolverine, conventional wisdom held that the film would be a definitive end to the X-Men movies produced by 20th Century Fox. After all, even if Kevin Feige had a hand in crafting that universe, serving as a producer on X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, he didn’t enjoy the full control that he has now as head of Marvel Studios. And given the multiple wrong turns, not to mention more than a few bad men who have been involved with the franchise, it might be nice to give Marvel’s merry mutants a clean slate.
But in a surprise bigger than any of its cameos, Deadpool & Wolverine preserves the Fox Universe for future use… and it leaves the door wide open for their possible return to the MCU proper.
FoX-Men’s Fate
Early in Deadpool & Wolverine, TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) adds a wrinkle to the much-discussed MCU time travel rules. Each universe apparently has an “Anchor Being,” a person of such importance that their death or absence from the timeline causes that branch to wither away.
With Wolverine’s death in Logan, the Fox Universe has started to wither (well, that and Mr. Paradox using a MacGuffin to rush the process from a couple millenia to a few days). But instead of taking Mr. Paradox’s offer to move him into the mainline Marvel Universe (aka the Sacred Timeline), Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool tries to save his universe by plucking a less-important Wolverine from another timeline and bringing it to the Fox Universe.
To the shock of everyone, it works! At the end of Deadpool & Wolverine, Wade welcomes Logan (Hugh Jackman) and X-23 (Dafne Keen) to his apartment and they all share a meal with Deadpool’s supporting cast, confident that their universe will continue thriving.
Or, to put it in movie biz details that the film barely tries to hide, the 20th Century Fox superhero universe lives on, and Kevin Feige has a built-in reason to bring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Halle Berry’s Storm, James McAvoy’s Professor X, or anyone else from those movies back to the screen.
Secret Wars Rising
Really, we shouldn’t be too shocked about Feige keeping his options open.
After all, Hugh Jackman’s return generated just as much buzz for Deadpool & Wolverine as anything else, helping the movie drum up a projected $340 – $360 million global opening. Before that, Spider-Man: No Way Home became a giant hit despite lingering fears over the COVID pandemic because it brought back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield from previous Spidey movies. And while X-Men ‘97’s audacious storytelling exceeded all expectations, the show got initial attention by continuing the Fox Kids cartoon from the 1990s. The same series that made the original X-Men movie of 2000 appealing to 20th Century Fox.
But the biggest indicator is the fact that the MCU is midway through the Multiverse Saga, which at least at one time was expected to culminate in Avengers: Secret Wars. Given the language of “incursions” in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, smart money suggests that Marvel’s adapting the 2015 comic book story Secret Wars, in which the Avengers and the Illuminati dealt with the collapse of the multiverse.
Given these financial and story reasons, it makes sense that Feige would want to keep access to the Fox Universe open for potential crossovers reminiscent of the one that just made Deadpool & Wolverine the most anticipated Marvel movie in years.
Unsubstantiated rumors have even previously suggested that the lead up to Secret Wars would involve the TVA putting together a multiversal team of Avengers to fight Kang the Conqueror, a team that might have included Maguire’s Spider-Man and Jackman’s Wolverine. Of course whether that was true or not, plans have obviously changed with the next Avengers movie losing its original title of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty after a hard creative pivot.
Yet whatever the state is (or isn’t) on multiversal crossovers, we know Jackman himself floated the idea this week of seeing his Logan interact with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. In other words, bringing back the Fox Universe seems to still fit the story that Feige has been building in the MCU, it excites the actors and the fans, and it makes a ton of money.
But Feige and the MCU should never, ever mention the Fox Universe again.
Worlds Will Live, Worlds Will Die
When it comes to shared universes, it’s generally better when a comic book writer leaves the toys for others to play with rather than kill off characters and prevent more development. In theory, more options lead to better stories, as it gives more space for creators to follow their muses.
But this bit of comic book writing theory occurs in a low-stakes medium where publishers need only invest in a few people. Hollywood movies happen on a titanic scale, with millions invested in a small country’s worth of people. If a blockbuster movie doesn’t make billions, then Disney, Sony, or whatever global megacorporation produced it considers it a bust, not without reason.
Thus time and again (including, to be honest, in Deadpool & Wolverine) characters have come back for no other reason than to boost sales. Writers twist narratives into knots to justify a character’s return, sacrificing tension, surprise, and pathos in exchange for fan service.
Furthermore, it’s hard to believe that the trick will continue to work. Already we’re seeing diminishing returns in rewatches of hits such as Spider-Man: No Way Home. After the cheers that greeted Maguire and Garfield fade, the movie’s fans think more about the sorrow that Holland’s Peter felt when Aunt May died, and the detractors think more about the clunky plot mechanics.
Conversely, after you’ve brought back C-list interpretations that are anything but beloved, say Jennifer Garner’s Elektra or Chris Evans’ Johnny Storm, how many more surprises do you have left? The gimmick starts to wear thin.
In fact, we’re already seeing the desire for fresh takes on those familiar faces. Sure, Johnny’s cameo will get a lot of laughs this weekend, but that fleeting excitement will be nothing like what’s building around next year’s The Fantastic Four. There is a level of anticipation there unlike anything the three Fox films ever garnered. Add in the jokes that Deadpool made about the MCU’s recent struggles and its obvious desperation, and the general exhaustion everyone feels about multiverse stories, in and outside of the MCU, it’s hard to see any further visits to the Fox Universe as anything other than tired desperation.
Hope They Had the Time of Their Lives
As likely as a Fox Universe reprise might seem, there is one big red flag waving against such speculation, and his name is Jonathan Majors. At the outset of Phase Four, Majors’s Kang the Conqueror was announced as the big bad of the Multiverse Saga.
After all, the Marvel Multiverse, which includes the Sony and Fox movie universes, officially came into being when Sylvie killed Kang’s Variant He Who Remains in the first season finale of Loki. Marvel transformed the low-stakes Ant-Man series into the launch of the next major storyline by including Kang, and Avengers 5 was first titled The Kang Dynasty, with the conventional understanding being that Kang’s shenanigans would lead to the incursions of Secret Wars.
But as everyone knows, Majors’ off-screen behavior has resulted in his removal from all future Marvel projects. While Marvel could easily recast the character, as they’ve done with Rhodey and Thunderbolt Ross, they seem to have taken the opportunity to rethink their plans for the next few years. As of this writing, Avengers 5 has no official title, even if it appears that Joe and Anthony Russo will make a return to direct.
Perhaps the biggest evidence against a Fox return is in the ending of Deadpool & Wolverine. The mid-credit sequence features a loving goodbye in the form of behind-the-scenes footage from all 20th Century Fox superhero movies, not just the X-Men. The nostalgic montage is edited to Green Day’s wistful ballad about the changing of life’s seasons, “Time of Your Life.” The surprisingly unironic sequence has a real high school graduation feel, in which everyone involved looks back fondly on what happened but is ready to move on.
For the good of the MCU and of superhero fiction in general, that’s exactly what everyone should do. Remember the good things about the Fox Universe, but leave it in the past and look forward to new stories and new characters.
Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now.
Written by
Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!