X-Men Apocalypse. Remember that movie? Yeah I forgot about it again too which is a shame because it seems to be shaping into one of the better X-Films out of all. It certainly has the biggest scale and stakes than previous releases and it’s got the look of a great comic book movie but for some reason this movie always slips my memory. I could blame the egg nog but my gut tells me that there’s more to this than simply being too inebriated to remember that the franchise that brought mass interest into comic book related films is simply that easy to forget. X-Men Apocalypse has long since earned the right to be at the forefront of our minds and hearts with regard to Comic Book films. Bryan Singer was been the original architect for comic book based ensemble films way back in the year 2000 and has pretty much nailed every X-Men film that he’s directed since stepping into the world of mutants (nope, won’t touch Superman Returns). So why is it so hard to remember this movie even exists? Well, there’s a couple of reasons for that and they’re all a damn shame:
1) Overshadowed by Star Wars Hype
This one is a no-brainer. Simply look at any movie, music, social, animal, toy, or even pop-culture related website and you’ll find more than a few headlines trying to find a way to cover Star Wars. The movie was predicted to pretty much overshadow any and everything in its wake and it absolutely accomplished that goal with non-stop discussions about either the mythology, the film, the earnings, the cast and anything else a person with a keyboard and mouse can think of to write about this movie. It is, without doubt, the biggest film release of the year and completely dominates conversation whenever given the opportunity.
2) Overshadowed by Marvel’s own cinematic offerings
This one is tough to bear as Marvel’s own cinematic offerings have crushed the X-films in the box office. Marvel analyzed what the X-films did, figured out what worked and what didn’t, and pretty much made a blueprint to follow with much more tact and precision. Disney buying Marvel takes things to a completely different level with the marketing prowess of the house of mouse backing things its noticeable that the Disney branded Marvel films get a lot more coverage than the films released by Fox whom is spotty with releasing X-films. Disney has successfully levered Marvel into a brand that the mass public associates with a quality that has eclipsed all other comic film efforts in the past 5 years and is making other companies scramble to emulate their success.
3) Bad experience with spin-offs
The X-Men films work but their spinoffs either bomb at the box office, never get released or, in First Class’ case, gets re-purposed as a reboot rather than a spinoff. The 2 previously released ‘Wolverine’ films ranged from terrible to ‘not-so-terrible’ without either one truly considered as standout or even ‘great’ films. This inconsistency has hurt the brand and made it difficult for Fox to grow their stable of mutants into a successfully cinematic universe. Just think about it: Their best bet at finally expanding is Deadpool.
4) They’re islolated into their own cinematic world
This is a catch-22. On one hand it’s a lot easier from a narrative perspective to explain humanities fear of super powered beings when there aren’t any non-mutant super powered beings mucking things up. This isolation has led to a singular, consistent narrative for the films to follow and has worked. On the other hand, with the X-films failing to really grow much beyond their main releases There’s simply no other people for the X-folks to play with and that’s a real let down as there’s little reinforcement that these movies even exist outside the 2-3 year gap in films and todays general audience is a forgetful lot. No crossover films with Age of Ultron, no body swapping with Spider-Man and not even a Sam Jackson name dropping them in another movie. These guys have been closed out of all of the Marvel cinematic universe success for a while and it’s frustrating. There were rumors of expanding Fox’s cinematic offerings with the Fantastic Four movie and creating a shared universe but when the movie failed to be a success it seems plausible that this idea has been scrapped altogether.
5) The marketing has been nil since the backlash received with the Apocalypse reveal
The reveal of Apocalypse was met with a nerd-rage unlike anything ever seen by Bryan Singer. Bryan Singer has mostly been a 1 man marketing team sharing all sorts of behind the scene shots and details on his personal social media accounts which was going fine but reached a turning point with the inevitable reveal of Apocalypse. With comic fans referencing beloved X-Men cartoons and comics as favorite interpretations of the character, Synger’s new look Apocalypse was not met with warm greetings and salutations. The damage was severe and even the not-terrible trailer that was released wasn’t enough to undo the damage done.
Again, X-Men has long since earned the right to be at the top of our lists with most anticipated comic book movies being released and Bryan Singer has earned the right for comic book and general fans’ trust when releasing a new X-Men movie but the latest film is releasing at a time that’s practically shoehorned between other comic book films that are not at all interested in sharing the spotlight in an increasingly crowded superhero environment. There are simply so many films being released in a small window of time that a new X-Men film hardly feels as special or quite the ‘event’ that it once was.
This isn’t to say the film will bomb or even remotely be a failure in the box office as Fox will unquestionably ramp up marketing closer to release and the faith the Bryan Synger has built for almost two decades of X-films is significant but it’s disappointing that X-Men brand no longer holds the title of being the champion of superhero film genre. They’re still leaps and bounds over anything non-Marvel branded but they have fallen behind in discussion lately thanks to films like Star Wars, Captain America and Batman vs Superman .
