Fox’s X-Men Set the Stage for the Golden Age of Comic Book Films

This weekend will see the release of the final X-Men film of the Fox era. It been a whole generation since X-Men debuted in theaters and ushered in the modern age of comic book films. With Marvel’s Merry Mutants back where they belong at Marvel Studios, it’s worth taking a look at how the Fox X-Men films shaped the pop culture landscape. For 20 Years, this franchise has shepherded the comic book movie to its’ coming of age in the world of film, opening the way for Raimi’s Spider-Man, Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In doing so, this film franchise also oversaw the end of the 90’s action film, set the template for the 2000’s blockbuster, and later reinvented itself when the genre outstripped the original X-Men films.

Looking back at the production of the first X-Men film, you can’t overlook the importance of the primary casting decisions. X-Men was the first time a major Marvel property was ever adapted to live film, and making sure the characters in the film looked and felt like the comic characters, much like Christopher Reeves brought Superman to life. On that note, It’s impossible to overstate the gravitas given the debut X-Men feature by the likes of Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as Professor X and Magneto. For characters nominally meant to emulate Martin Luther King and Malcolm X philosophically, actors with critical acclaim and nerd cred were hard to come by at the turn of the century, and these two actors lent the movies a veneer of respectability that was previously unheard of in the comic book genre. Additionally, all the central casting was spot-on. Halle Barry, James Marsden, and Famke Jansen all looked the part of their characters, and made sure to convey the core personalities of the X-Men. Ironically, The biggest risk taken in casting was on Hugh Jackman. Nowadays, Hugh and SniktBub are inseparable from each other, but in 2000, casting a virtually unknown 6’4 Australian Broadway actor to play a 5’2 Canadian brawler that was second only to Spider-Man at Marvel in terms of recognition and popularity was a stretch to say the least. By making sure to faithfully translate the characters from film to screen, it helped make characters like Spider-Man and Iron Man seem like they could be realities on the big screen as well.

Secondly, In an era when “comic book film” meant Joel Schumacher’s Batman films, X-Men decided to embrace the narrative themes of source material. The film was thoroughly focused on the allegory of “The Other” so central to the X-Men mythos, with a plot focused on civil rights legislation, systemic oppression, and how people respond to hatred and bigotry. This launched an era of “serious comic book films” where the trend was to make comic book films that could be taken seriously by average moviegoers, reaching a pinnacle in Nolan’s Batman films. This would also translate to the more grounded action of the superheroics themselves. In a contrast to the camp of previous Comic Book films, X-Men was filmed in a post-Matrix world. The action blockbuster was dying to catch up with The Matrix’s sense of action and style, and the X-Men franchise reflected this in both the movies and the comics, looking to fit the sleek and sexy leather look of the new millennium. The Kickboxing fighting style of Toad, the military raid combat sequences of X2’s Mansion and bunker raids, and the military science background of the main villains of X2 helped the X-Men stars fit in with the likes of Bruce Willis, Kate Beckinsale, and Keanu Reeves

These decisions would later became a unique dilemma for the franchise. By the time the X-Men: The Last Stand rolled around, Raimi’s Spider-Man and Batman Begins had set a new standard for what comic book films could be. Moreover, action blockbusters where either striving for realism, like the Bourne movies, or going for the fantastic, such as the Star Wars prequels. X-Men: The Last Stand tried to split the difference, and ended up finding itself out of vogue in both styles of action film. The action sequences couldn’t match the kinetic wonder of Spider-Man 2’s train sequence, nor the visceral feel of The Bourne Identity’s chase sequences. This difference splitting was made even more apparent at the release of 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which existed in a post Iron Man and The Dark Knight world. The plotting and effects just weren’t keeping up with these latter-day comic book films, and the X-Men risked being left behind by the passage of time. With Marvel embarking on their ambitious Avengers build-up, and Nolan earning unseen critical acclaim for his Batman films, X-Men, which started out as a pioneering franchise, now found itself struggling to create a distinct identity for itself that could keep pace with these juggernauts.

Wolverine’s universal criticism forced Fox to scrap plans for Magneto and Cyclops solo prequels. In addition, the Writers’ Guild of America’s strike left Fox with several unfinished scripts. With few options available to the studio, Fox decided to course correct by essentially attempting a soft reboot, combining the Magneto script with a treatment for a prequel X-Men film establishing the formation of the team. X-Men: First Class would try to have the best of both worlds in terms of continuity and being a stand alone film experience. By setting the film in the youthful years of Charles Xavier and Magneto in the swinging 60’s, a distinctly Sixites Cold War Thriller vibe resulted that was totally different from everything that came before. Tonally, the film felt closer to a James Bond film than any kind of previous superhero film, while allowing the series to hone in on its’ roots discussing oppression and civil rights. The film ended up being a huge commercial and critical success. In doing so, it proved to movie studios that moviegoers were ready for a different type of superhero film. Comic book movies didn’t have to be action blockbusters; they could take inspiration from all genres of film and create wholly unique experiences from the previous decade.

The next film, The Wolverine, would continue this trend by creating an adaptation of the famous Claremont-Miller miniseries. Set years after the events of the original trilogy, this film decided to be a character study, focusing on the drama that comes from a life of violence and the mental toll it can take on an immortal. James Mangold combined this character study with a distinct samurai flair, with action sequences closer to Oldboy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than any previous superhero film. With the film being another critical and financial successes, Fox was starting to find it’s groove by infusing different types of genres into the comic book film.

This period piece and genre twisting would be fully realized by Days of Future Past. This film manages to both be a 70’s political thriller akin to Three Days of The Condor, and a dystopian future survival film akin to Terminator 2. These dual settings and tones allowed the franchise to unite both sets of casts, giving the original 2000’s cast, influenced so much by the Matrix and Terminator a proper send off and redemption in the eyes of fans, while allowing the James Macavoy led cast to continue their decades-genre style uninterrupted into a bright future. Later films took the unique strengths of the characters to succeed. Logan and The Wolverine were affecting Character Studies focused on the psychic toll of violence, and coming to terms with mortality. Deadpool and Deadpool 2 embraced the absurdist in superheroics, playfully jabbing at the conventions of the genre, and establishing the character as the jester of the genre. The New Mutants film, if ever released, was angling in on the Horror genre. Even X-Men: Apocalypse styled itself as a disaster film in tone. In doing so, the franchise reinvented itself from run of the mill action films to pushing the comic book film into different Genres, proving the versatility of superheroes as film material. Superhero films no longer needed to be special effects driven action adventures. They could be Westerns, horror films, Sci-Fi films, Political thrillers, Samurai films, and more. The X-Men films showed that the audience would continue to embrace the genre if it could bring something new to the table.

The success of these Fox films would influence both Marvel and DC. Marvel would start taking the genre twist pioneered by Fox and implementing it into as many films as possible, in order to keep the MCU fresh for viewers. This provided us with films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of The Galaxy, and Thor: Ragnarok. Meanwhile, when DC’s own cinematic universe found itself floundering after the poor reception of Batman Vs Superman, and the infamous troubled production of Justice League, DC took a similar route of doing self contained films that were only ancillary connected to the original story, and has managed to have two successes in Aquaman and Shazam, and regaining public goodwill as a result if the public reception to Joker was any indicator.

The X-Men films aren’t the best cinematic universe, nor are they the most consistent in terms of quality, but they didn’t have the luxury to be. The Marvel Cinematic Universe and DCEU films learned how to build a successful franchise and push the genre by learning from the successes and failures of the X-Men franchise. In doing so, they paved the way for the Golden age of Comic Book movies we live in now. We wouldn’t be getting an R Rated Batman or Joker film without Deadpool and Logan showing they could be critical and financial successes. People wouldn’t believe we could handle an ensemble of superheroes without the success of the original X-Men trilogy at introducing and juggling multiple characters. It speaks to the appeal of the X-Men characters and themes that even after 11 X-Men films over 20 years, The X-Men are easily the most anticipated characters yet to be introduced to the MCU. The Fox era of X-Men pioneered the modern box office’s biggest money makers, and even through all the franchise failures, they still produced several of the finest comic book movies to date. Much like the humans of the X-Men films, the public might never fully understand or appreciate what they did, but the X-Men performed a great public service for all of moviekind.