Patrick Stewart says he’s spoken with Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios about the X-Men movies, but isn’t planning to return as Professor X. Along with Hugh Jackman, Stewart holds the Guinness World Record for longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero, having played the X-Men’s leader and powerful telepath Charles Xavier (aka. Professor X) for seventeen years. For better or worse, though, Stewart wrapped up his run as the character in 2017, the same year Disney began its purchase of Fox and re-gained the rights to use the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Although Marvel Studios confirmed its plans to bring the X-Men into the MCU at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, the franchise is expected to get a hard reboot after Fox’s run of films. The only potential exception to that rule in The New Mutants, Fox and Josh Boone’s long-delayed spinoff that finally opens in theaters in April. It’s been reported the horror-centric mutant movie has been scrubbed clean of its references to the Fox X-Men universe, in case Feige decides to fold its characters into the MCU at a certain point in Phase 5.

Speaking to Digital Spy, Stewart confirmed he met with Feige a couple of months ago and had “long, long conversations” with him about the X-Men movies, saying there have been “moves and suggestions, which include Charles Xavier”. But before anyone reads too much into that, Stewart added he isn’t planning to return as Professor X in the MCU, explaining “Here’s the problem… If we had not made Logan, then yes, I would probably be ready to get into that wheelchair one more time and be Charles Xavier. But Logan changed all that”.

His statement echoes recent comments Stewart made about Logan, the X-Men movies, and Star Trek, ahead of his highly anticipated return as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in this week’s Star Trek: Picard series premiere. Where the actor felt he had previously finished his run as Picard on a “pretty weak” note with 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, he was wholly satisfied with Logan and the ending it gave to Charles Xavier. In fact, it was because of his good experience on Logan Stewart became interested in reprising Picard in the first place.

It’s difficult to argue with Stewart on this point. Logan gave his version of Professor X as emotionally powerful a conclusion as any film probably could, and to back-track on that by reviving him for the MCU would only risk under-cutting the impact of that ending. It’s now agreed a big part of the reason last year’s Dark Phoenix bombed at the box office was Logan marked the end of the Fox era of X-Men for most people, making last year’s installment feel like an afterthought more than anything. For the same reason, Marvel Studios would be better off starting with a clean slate on the X-Men movies, rather than trying to fit Stewart, Jackman, or anyone else associated with Fox’s mutant adventures (save for maybe Deadpool and The New Mutants) into the MCU.

Source: Digital Spy

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