The future of the X-Men movie franchise is still very much up in the air, with Disney and Marvel so far revealing absolutely no plans for any reboots or sequels for the popular mutant superheroes. If things had worked out differently, we might have already seen an even bigger X-Men Cinematic Universe from Fox, one with many more side franchises besides only Deadpool (and New Mutants, if you want to count it, assuming it actually finally does come out next month).

For example, Fantasy Island director Jeff Wadlow recently revealed to Comic Book Movie that he had written a a “three movie arc” about X-Force, the group of militant mutants spun off from the more peaceful X-Men, who are typically led by future warrior Cable (played in Deadpool 2 by Josh Brolin).

Here’s how Wadlow describes his pitch for the films, which were created before Deadpool came out and turned into a gigantic surprise hit:

What I can share about my take on the property (as it's not really relevant any more since Deadpool 2 introduced Cable, and I wrote X-Force before Deadpool 1 even came out), is that it asked if X-Men was about mutants who get to go to private school with Wolverine and Professor X, and have the Blackbird swooping down to pick them up, what about the mutants that have to go to public school? What about the ones who don't have the benefactor looking out for them, and what about the kids who have to figure it out on their own? We then would have introduced that darker, more militant mentor in the form of Cable.

Wadlow says he envisioned his franchise starting like the ’90s X-Force comic by Rob Liefeld and concluding with something closer to Rick Remender’s version from the 2000s. And apparently Rob Liefeld himself read this script and loved it:

Ultimately a whole host of factors killed this plan, including X-Men: Apocalypse — whose plot made the X-Force concept impossible at the time. (That movie then bombing with audiences and critics probably didn’t help either.) The notion of an X-Force was instead introduced in Deadpool 2, although it was mostly treated like a joke, and the team didn’t really exist in any legitimate form until the end of the movie. Now that Disney owns Fox, the chances of getting the movie that seemed poised to jump off from that ending seems less likely than ever. Alas. Fantasy Island is in theaters now.

Gallery — The Worst X-Men Movie Plot Holes:

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