In an interview with SciFiNow, X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer addresses the main difference between “Disney Marvel” and “Fox Marvel” and isn’t shy about getting to the point, which is to say he believes without Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, we might not be talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the same terms.
Firstly, addressing the idea of comparing the Marvel films at Fox against the Marvel films at Disney he says, “It’s not healthy for us… I’ll tell you why: they’re both comic-books and at some point you can expand the universes, that’s where the comparison ends.”
Then he takes the gloves off and gets down to business adding, “The Avengers is a mash-up of massive single character franchises of incredibly familiar characters and Iron Man. And did I mention Iron Man? Oh, and by the way – Iron Man… If you want to give me Robert Downey Jr in a metal suit and have him join the X-Men, then yes, let’s go head-to-head [with Marvel Studios].”
It’s interesting and up until Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the most successful, non-Iron Man film in the MCU, it did seem Iron Man had a stranglehold on the Marvel expanded universe. But The Avengers seemed to lift the lid on the universe making way for the increased success of Thor: The Dark World and what now seems to be a formula for success.
Perhaps most of the credit is due to the casting of Downey Jr. as Iron Man, which in that case a lot of credit ought to go to Jon Favreau who pushed for the casting. Nevertheless, the groundwork is done.
“It’s very different universes,” Singer continues. “The appeal is different and to try and do the same thing… this in an ‘inbetweequel’, OK, of two ensemble films, Avengers and the Marvel movies are individual franchises based on major characters that’s why there are some Marvel characters in Avengers that don’t have their own movie, because I don’t know if they had their own movie anyone would be that interested.”
As for further success with X-Men and expanding that universe at Fox, Singer said:
They are huge, colossal franchises that are peppered with all these other characters that are, again, extremely famous and so yes, Fox will at some point synergise [the X-Men] characters and that process is slowly beginning, but it’s very different than taking movies that gross close to a billion dollars and then pushing them together into these giant broad movies.
When it comes to recognition, he also says:
“We’re the bastard stepchild of the comic-book universe, you can go to my mom and she knows who Captain America is but you try and explain to her who Deadpool is? She doesn’t even know the Hulk – ‘You know, the Hulk! Green! Big guy!’ – so Gambit? It’ll have to be a different process, it’s doable but it’s not any way comparable.”
With X-Men: Days of Future Past, as I said in X-Men: Apocalypse set for 2016 and a post-credits stinger gives you a first glimpse at that as Fox hopes to keep their X-Men franchise alive and well, not to mention the fact Channing Tatum is expected to join the cast as Gambit, followed by his own spin-off after that.
Next up for the MCU is Guardians of the Galaxy in August with Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron arriving next year.
