Next year is going to be a big one for 20th Century Fox with not one but three movies hitting theaters that are set in the studio’s live-action X-Men universe — but apparently, that is just a precursor to even more cinematic Marvel superhero stories in the following years.
In an announcement confirming the release dates for the three X-Men movies scheduled to premiere in 2018, Fox also revealed plans to release six additional films based on Marvel Comics properties between 2019 and 2021. The identities of the six projects remain under wraps, leading to no shortage of speculation.
The six release dates set aside for the unknown movies based on Marvel comics characters include June 7 and November 22 in 2019, then the trio of March 13, June 26, and October 2 in 2020, and finally, March 5, 2021.
The best guess at what the six mystery movies might be likely comes from knowing the projects hitting theaters in the next few years — and the characters from the Marvel Comics universe that Fox already owns.
Coming up next in the studio’s comic-book movie universe is The New Mutants on April 13, 2018. That film will be followed by the still-untitled Deadpool sequel on June 1, 2018, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix on November 2, 2018.
It is reasonable to expect that one of the six release dates is set aside for a third Deadpool movie, as well as whatever film comes after X-Men: Dark Phoenix in the studio’s primary X-Men franchise. As for the other four projects, the Deadpool sequel premiering next year is expected to introduce several characters that can be spun off into the X-Force team-up movie featuring Josh Brolin’s Cable, among other characters. The studio is likely setting aside a date for a sequel to the aforementioned New Mutants movie, hoping that all goes well with that project.
Additional speculation suggests that Fox could be looking to develop a sequel to this year’s wildly successful Logan featuring young actress Dafne Keen, who received heaps of praise for her performance as Laura in that film. There is also the very real possibility that Fox tries again with a Fantastic Four movie, given that it still holds the rights to that Marvel superhero team and would need to release a new movie in order to hold onto the characters.
We are likely to get additional news about these mysterious movies once more is known about next year’s trio of films.
