Halle, Hugh, Robert — it has been a honor, however all good issues should come to an finish.

Following 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars, a number of key characters within the MCU will be recast, together with Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and the complete group of X-Men, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige introduced throughout a Friday press occasion, Variety reported.

Feige mentioned the corporate is “using” Secret Wars “not simply to spherical out the tales we have been telling post-Endgame, simply as importantly — and you’ll be able to take a look at the on the Secret Wars comics for the place that takes you — it very, very a lot units us up for the longer term… Endgame, actually, was about endings. Secret Wars is about is about beginnings.”

Marvel has slowed the tempo of MCU releases from the franchise’s level of biggest saturation, the mid-to-late 2010s, by which three, even 4 movies have been launched per yr.

The corporate launched just one movie in 2024, Deadpool & Wolverine, and although three are slated for this yr — Captain America: Courageous New World and Thunderbolts*, each beforehand launched, and The Improbable 4: First Steps, coming subsequent weekend — there’s only one movie apiece pegged to 2026 and 2027: Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Secret Wars represents a important reorienting juncture for the franchise, Feige indicated, however hesitated to name it a reboot.

“‘Reboot’ is a scary phrase… Reboot can imply loads of issues to lots of people,” he defined, describing the movie as an alternative as a “reset” for the MCU. “Reset, singular timeline — we’re pondering alongside these traces.”

“X-Men is the place that will occur subsequent,” he added.

It is no shock that Feige is is pegging a “reset” to the X-Men, given the corporate’s years-long effort to purchase the characters again from twenty first Century Fox, which lastly got here to fruition in 2019 when Disney, Marvel’s mother or father firm, acquired Fox.

In 2024, Feige teased “a brand new age of mutants and of the X-Men,” and this previous March, Marvel lastly introduced that after a smattering of X-Men teases in MCU movies — the unique movies’ star Kelsey Grammer appeared as Beast in The Marvels, whereas Patrick Stewart’s Professor X confirmed up in Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity — Avengers: Doomsday will formally mark the MCU’s first full exhibiting of X-Men characters.

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Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, and James Marsden have all been confirmed to reprise their roles within the MCU. Channing Tatum, who lastly introduced X-Men fan-favorite character Gambit to the massive display screen in Deadpool & Wolverine, will additionally be a part of them.

“There’ve been extra X-Men motion pictures than there have been Spidey motion pictures or Improbable 4 motion pictures, so loads has been finished,” Feige famous, whereas talking at a current Improbable 4 roundtable, ScreenRant reported. “However once more, as a result of it is virtually a comic book legacy unto itself, there’s a lot extra to faucet into it and there’s so many sagas inside sagas for X-Men.”

The final time the X-Men franchise noticed a serious solid overhaul was for 2011 prequel movie X-Men First Class. The brand new solid included James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, and Nicholas Hoult as Beast. Previous then met new in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Previous, by which Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine from the unique movies goes again in time to collaborate with the prequel movies’ stars, whereas the movie cuts between the 2 timelines and their totally different casts, together with Halle Berry as Storm, Anna Paquin as Rogue, Famke Janssen as Jean Gray, amongst different stars of the unique movies.

X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016 and Darkish Phoenix in 2019 additionally starred the McAvoy- and Fassbender-led prequels solid, although the later movies didn’t take pleasure in the identical enthusiastic important reception the primary two movies that includes the prequel solid did.