Fox Solidifies Its 2018 Superhero Lineup With ‘Deadpool 2,’ ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’

It looks like 20th Century Fox is in a release date kinda mood. After James Cameron used his film’s Facebook page this morning to share the premieres of his next four Avatar sequels, Fox has also announced the release dates for its upcoming slate of Marvel movies, including Deadpool 2, New Mutants, and the next film in their X-Men franchise, X-Men: Dark Phoenix. For the five Gambit fans in the house who thought this might finally be their moment, well, sorry guys, that one’s still in development hell.

According to ComicBookMovie.com, Fox has announced that New Mutants is less than a year away, with the film expected to drop on April 13, 2018; Deadpool 2 will follow shortly thereafter on June 1, 2018; and X-Men: Dark Phoenix will round out Fox’s superhero slate on November 2, 2018. Hey, that last one is just in time for award season! Time to start heating up those Oscar rumors for Sophie Turner.

While Bryan Singer has been dropping hints for some time now that the Phoenix saga would be the subject of the next X-Men movie, this seems to be the first official announcement confirming the storyline. As a reminder, Marvel’s storyline has Jean Grey going from a mild-mannered teen looking to control her psychic powers to an all-powerful being looking to destroy life on Earth as we know it. The storyline was used  —  at least in passing  —  in Brett Ratner’s third X-Men movie, but I’m sure everyone will understand if Singer decides to give the saga his own spin the next time out. With Hugh Jackman ostensibly retired from the movies, at least we won’t have to deal with the same sobbing ending to the franchise.

This also serves as confirmation that Fox is committed to Josh Boone’s New Mutants storyline, another X-verse entry we’ve been hearing about for quite a while. Last December, Boone described the spinoff as potentially being “really dark, interesting, and different” from the X-Men stories we’ve typically seen onscreen, meaning that Fox really is trying to frame themselves as the dark counterpart to Marvel’s lighter fare. And as for Deadpool 2? Well, come on. We’ve already seen an awesome new teaser for that film; you don’t really need to get any more hyped, do you?