An excerpt from my script review for X-Men: Days of Future Past which will be available 06/12/24:
1.) Marketability of the Idea
The Littlest and I started watching X-Men ’97 a few weeks ago and really got into it.
Me explaining who all the characters were, and her getting caught up in the 90s nostalgia that projects like Stranger Things romanticize.
Couple that with Deadpool and Wolverine coming out this summer, and I thought this would be a fun project to take a look at that bridges the gap between X-Men movies of the early 2000s and the New Class ones.
One of the things this script did really well was give us the characters from the comics and TV shows we haven’t seen before in the films.
(Like Bishop!)
These are a great way to appease die hard and casual fans alike, and I forgot just how many were in this opening sequence.
(Unfortunately some, like my daughter’s “favorite” Jubilee got cut for the final film. I put that in quotes, because, like most people, she thinks her powers are dumb. “She shoots sparkles from her hands?” Technically they’re more like fireworks, but yeah.)
The point of this section though, in reference to these X-Men movies, is to try and stay close to the source material.
It’s prolonged success is due to something, so don’t go and try to reinvent that. I’m reminded of the newer Star Wars films, where there was the Zahn trilogy that takes place after the original ones, and it’s almost like Kathleen Kennedy told Abrams and anyone else involved not to touch it.
Although the Zahn story wasn’t perfect, what we got instead was a bit of a cluster fuck.
Tying this back to Deadpool and his excursions this summer, I’m very interested to see how they bring the X-Men into the MCU, and anytime I see him in character, I’m glad Ryan Reynolds leaked the Deadpool script online to generate an interest in something he knew would work.
My one criticism of his portrayal, even if it is hard to know where Wade Wilson ends and Ryan Reynolds begins, is that I remember reading the comics and Deadpool having this love affair with Death, who was a cloaked female wielding the sickle.
He and Thanos were always vying for her affection, and it was kind of cool in a strange way.
Wish they’d have included that, but I get the Vanessa thing…I guess.
Anyway…I remember seeing this one in the theater with the whole famn damily…
X-Men: Days of Future Past Box Office Results
(Hopefully Deadpool & Wolverine can rejuvenate the summer box office like this!)
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