Kevin Feige Teases “Sagas Upon Sagas” of X-Men Movies, Marvel May Keep This Cast Until They Are 90
Marvel Studios has spent years carefully rebuilding its relationship with the X-Men, moving cautiously ever since regaining the film rights from 20th Century Fox. What started as a single rebooted cast announcement is now shaping up to be something far bigger, according to the studio’s own leadership.
That ambition became clear during Disney’s D23 fan event, where Kevin Feige addressed the future of Marvel’s mutant franchise directly. Rather than treating the upcoming reboot as a standalone project, Feige framed it as the start of a story Marvel intends to keep telling for decades to come.
Speaking during the Disney Worldbuilders panel, Feige pointed to the sheer scale of X-Men comic book history as justification for a long-term commitment to the franchise. According to Feige, Marvel is looking well beyond a single trilogy or even a handful of films when it comes to its new mutant lineup.
“Having 85, almost 90 years of comic book history, there’s so many stories yet to tell,” Feige said during the panel, according to GamesRadar+. “We announced a very young, new cast for a property called X-Men the other day. And that’s great, because there’s been 10 great X-Men movies, [but] there can be 100 more. There’s sagas upon sagas, with these comics that haven’t been told yet.”
That “sagas upon sagas” framing lines up with recent casting decisions for the rebooted franchise. The X-Men lineup revealed at D23 skews notably young, featuring Maya Boyd as Storm, Christopher Abbott as Professor Charles Xavier, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, and Adam Driver as Mister Sinister, joining previously announced cast members Kit Connor as Scott Summers and Samara Weaving as Emma Frost.
That younger ensemble appears to be a deliberate choice tied directly to Feige’s long-term vision. By building the cast around actors early in their careers, Marvel positions itself to keep the same performers in these roles for years, potentially decades, without needing to recast key characters the way it eventually will for aging Avengers roles.
Reports have previously indicated Feige has discussed a roughly ten-year plan for the X-Men internally with Marvel colleagues, reinforcing that this reboot was never intended as a quick, self-contained trilogy. Given the studio’s history of building interconnected stories across years of releases, that kind of extended runway tracks with how Marvel has approached its most successful franchises in the past.
The timing of the X-Men reboot also carries narrative significance within the wider Marvel timeline. Following the events of ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars,’ Feige has indicated the studio plans to fold its various Marvel properties into what he’s described as a more streamlined, simplified single universe, with the X-Men positioned as a central pillar of that new era.
Notably, several actors from the original 2000s and 2010s X-Men films, including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, and Kelsey Grammer, are set to reprise their legacy roles in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ later this year. That reunion effectively closes out one era of X-Men storytelling before Jake Schreier’s rebooted film picks up with an entirely new generation of mutants.
Directed by Schreier, who previously helmed ‘Thunderbolts*,’ the new ‘X-Men’ is set to hit theaters on May 5, 2028, kicking off Marvel’s next major wave of mutant-focused storytelling. Given how deliberately Feige has framed this reboot as a foundation rather than a finish line, fans should expect the X-Men to remain central to Marvel’s plans well beyond a single film.
With Feige openly discussing a future that could stretch across “100 more” movies, the scale of Marvel’s ambitions for its rebooted mutant team is becoming increasingly clear.
Could Marvel really make “100 more” X-Men movies?
Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!
