‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Will End of Bryan Singer’s ‘X-Men’ Universe

Everything eventually comes to an end ... except in Hollywood, where an ending simply means another reboot is around the corner. So what are we to make of the new rumor swirling around the internet that claims the current X-Men movie universe will come to an end following the release of X-Men: Apocalypse and The Wolverine 2? If true, it probably means we get to look forward to and/or dread all of the recasting that will start to rear its head in a few years.

This rumor comes to us courtesy of superhero movie scooper El Mayimbe, who emphasizes that this is all unconfirmed. Here’s his original post:

As he notes, this rumor does make sense because Hugh Jackman is finally ready to quit playing Wolverine and Apocalypse is Jennifer Lawrence’s last X-Men film. Rather than recast the the anchors of the entire franchise, it may seem wiser to just begin with a completely clean slate. And then there’s the fact that X-Men: Apocalypse will see the team battling one of the biggest and baddest comic book villains of all time. How do you follow that up?

However, this rumor also feels, well, strange. The X-Men franchise was already semi-rebooted in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which used time travel to wipe most of the movies out of existence. The door is wide open! The possibilities are limitless! There is literally nothing stopping 20th Century Fox from continuing these movies and simply focusing on characters who aren’t Wolverine. If the X-Men universe is coming to an end, doesn’t that kneecap the upcoming Deadpool and Channing Tatum’s Gambit? There are a lot of unanswered questions here.

If X-Men: Apocalypse marks the end of Bryan Singer’s tenure as an X-Men director, it would certainly feel like the end of an era. He’s been here since start of the superhero movie boom way back in 2000 and him closing the book on this franchise would be a big deal. If the sequel to The Wolverine actually turns out to be Jackman’s final, definitive outing as the adamantium-clawed hero, it will be impossible to not appreciate his dedication to the character over so many years. But we find it hard to believe that Fox would scrap everything, especially since they’ve just cast a bunch of young actors as new versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and more. A few figureheads may be leaving, but we’ll believe the total destruction of Singer’s X-Men world when we see it.

X-Men: Apocalypse will open on May 27, 2016. The still-untitled Wolverine sequel is set for March 3, 2017.