This past year and a half has been a pretty solid one for 20th Century Fox. February 2016 saw the release of the R-rated hit Deadpool, that May saw the release of X-Men: Apocalypse, and most recently, we saw another R-rated flick in the form of Logan, which brought Wolverine’s story to an end. While X-Men: Apocalypse wasn’t the biggest hit ever (it took in less than $600 million worldwide), the other two really seemed to solidify the studio’s approach of taking big risks with their properties.

While 2017 sees the release of only just one film, Fox has never been the studio to shoot for a regular, consistent, and ridiculous number of films each year. But that may be set to change next year. According to a report, Fox is releasing three films in 2018.

First on the list is the teen-focused spinoff, New Mutants, from director Josh Boone. This is a film that’s been in development for quite some time, and for a bit there, it almost seemed like it’d be one of those films that faces endless development and no production (*cough* Gambit *cough). Now it sounds like the film will be hit April 13, 2018.

Next up is Deadpool 2. No surprise here. It was pretty much expected that it would get its release some time in 2018, but there was no official confirmation to back this up until now. According to the report, Deadpool 2 hits theaters on June 1, 2018. Considering the progress they’ve been making in the script and casting, June certainly seems like a good release date, but if I was a betting man, I would have thought Deadpool 2 would hit before New Mutants. Can’t win them all, I suppose.

Lastly is the long-awaited Dark Phoenix film, which is slated for a November 2, 2018 release date. The most interesting aspect of this film is that it’s only being referred to as Dark Phoenix — without the X-Men moniker at its front. It’s unclear if that was an accidental omission, but Deadline is reporting the film as a “spinoff” rather than a proper X-Men film, which is an interesting move for them to make. Perhaps X-Men: Apocalypse was the last time they felt the need to include X-Men in the title? If so, it would again prove the riskier moves that Fox is taking with their Marvel properties. 

Perhaps they’ve learned that, first and foremost, staying true to their characters and making great movies is the best kind of branding. Either that or it was an accident. For all we know, next week, we’ll hear that the title is officially called X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but all the same, it is interesting.

No doubt, the announcement of Dark Phoenix may be the most pleasing news of all. It’s been a storyline fans have been wanting to see on the big screen for a long time, and even today, we have yet to see a faithful adaptation. In an interview with our very own Edward Douglas back in February, X-Men writer and producer Simon Kinberg even expressed his regrets with how the storyline was handled in X-Men: The Last Stand.

“…my regret about the movie is that the Dark Phoenix story was sort of the subplot and the main plot was the cure story, if you remember. I think the main mistake (among others) we made in that movie was taking something that is as profound, dramatic and epic, potentially, as the Dark Phoenix story, and pushing it down to be the B-plot of a movie when it really should be the A-plot of maybe one or more movies. That’s I guess what I would say about is that I felt as though we—for whatever reason, and it was a combination of different impulses and different input—we made a movie that wasn’t truly a Dark Phoenix story, it was a continuation of the X-Men saga and Dark Phoenix was one of the stories within it instead of focusing on Dark Phoenix as the story.”

This will certainly give them a chance to redeem themselves. If the past several films are any indication, this current regime of Fox seems open to taking risks with the characters.

What do you think of this news? Which of the three films are you looking forward to most? Let us know in the comments down below!

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SOURCES: IGN, Deadline