Now that Disney is set to officially acquire 20th Century Fox, it's only a matter of time before Fox's stable of Marvel characters will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Folding that many characters, or rebooting them, as will likely be the case, into an existing universe will be no small challenge, particularly as the X-Men are a very different breed of superhero than the Avengers. One person who isn't certain whether the X-Men can fit into the MCU is Professor X himself, James McAvoy.
While speaking with Yahoo Movies UK to promote GLASS, McAvoy was asked about how the X-Men might function in the MCU.
I don’t know if the X-Men could go into the Marvel universe, I’m not sure. Maybe they could? But I think what’s different about the Avengers universe anyway is you’ve only got a couple of superheroes in the world. There’s a good amount, there’s like a couple of football teams’ worth, you know what I mean? Whereas in the X-Men world you’re potentially saying that there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of [superheroes] and the social implication of that is different.
"So In the X-Men world, [superheroes] are ghetto-ised," McAvoy continued. "They’re ostracised and they’re feared. Whereas in the Avengers world, they’re sort of honoured a bit more, I know there are times when they are shunned and vilified, but they're generally more honoured and seen as heroes. We’re seen almost like immigrants that people are scared of in the world of mutants and humans. How do you resolve that?" McAvoy went on to add that he's sure Marvel Studios will be able to figure it out. "They’re very clever, they’ve done [the MCU] very well, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out." As the X-Men and the rest of the Marvel Universe have co-existed in the realm of comics for decades, I'm sure Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and his team will have little trouble re-introducing them on the big-screen.
James McAvoy will next be seen in M. Night Shyamalan's GLASS which will hit theaters on January 18th, and McAvoy's next turn in the X-MEN franchise will be for DARK PHOENIX on June 7, 2019.