After six films set in the X-MEN universe, the franchise underwent a soft-reset with X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. We still don't know the full effects of this reset, aside from reversing several character deaths, but producer Simon Kinberg spoke with MTV to make it clear that everything from here on out will become the new X-MEN canon:
The idea is that we’ve sort of reset the timeline after ’Days of Future Past’ in some ways, and if not erased, certainly allowed for change from ’X1,’ ’2,’ ’3,’ everything from ’Days of Future Past’ forward, 1973, everything we set now becomes canon, so the ’Gambit’ movie, the ’Deadpool’ movie, will exist in a world that acknowledges whatever happened in ’Days of Future Past’ and moving forward. Doesn’t mean they’ll always interact with those characters, obviously, it’s not like every movie has all the characters, but they all have to exist within the same rules.
With Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Gambit (Channing Tatum), and the rest of the X-Men now firmly existing in the same universe, Simon Kinberg reveals that there are plans for "interplay between different characters in different movies." I'm suddenly finding myself desperately wanting to see a fourth-wall breaking Deadpool hanging out with Wolverine, Professor X, and all the others. There's already a plan in place for just how these characters will interact, with Kinberg saying that "we have a clear sense of the directions we want to take them in and in my my mind at least, how we could start to cross-pollinate sort of with those characters that have their standalone movies."
The next X-Men film, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, features Oscar Isaac as the titular villain but his costume has been met with frequent criticism from fans; Kinberg attempted to explain the costume's departure from what we've seen so far in the franchise:
I feel like we have been, the ’X-Men’ franchise, has been growing a little bit more into science fiction. I think ’Days of Future Past’ with time travel and the Sentinels took us into a slightly broader, more science fiction world than the films had occupied in the past, we felt like the movies were ready for something that was slightly more, let’s say, cosmic. Once we made the decision for Apocalypse to be the villain at the center of the movie, we wanted to be true to the comics, which are sort of, like you, say, not costume, but it’s not just a guy in a helmet. It is more cosmic.
DEADPOOL is set for a February 12, 2016 release, while X-MEN: APOCALYPSE will open on May 27, 2016, and GAMBIT following on October 7, 2016.