Avengers: Endgame — Why the Defenders and X-Men were not used

As great as Avengers: Endgame was — and it was great but it could have been better with The Defenders and the X-Men, unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Avengers: Endgame devastated the box office over the weekend. In just a few days Endgame grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Fans and critics alike marveled, at the epic climax that saw an 11-year journey come to an end. It was a fantastic movie, much like the other team-up films before it. One can argue even greater.

Still, hardcore Marvel fans can’t deny there was something missing. A plethora of heroes that deserve to get on the fray. Some of those aforementioned heroes once belonged to Netflix, The Defenders. And the others once belonged to Fox, with an upcoming climatic film of its own, the X-Men.

So what happened? Why weren’t any of the Marvel TV characters, X-Men, or both used in Avengers Endgame? In all fairness, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Jarvis (James D’Arcy) were part of it. However, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus explained to The New York Times why The Defenders weren’t.

"“Are we really going to assume they have bought a subscription to Netflix and watched those [Marvel] shows enough so that when they see them, they’re going to go yay… It also screws up the timelines. You would have to assume that they  all got snapped away, or otherwise [The Defenders] might have shown up earlier. “"

As for why the X-Men weren’t included, well deal wasn’t done in time. Plus it didn’t appear that McFeely and Markus were willing to throw a wrench into a franchise that had an upcoming movie.

"“They still have… [Dark Phoenix, due in June]. You can’t reboot them before they’re done. “‘Sorry to completely screw you.’”"

The Dark Phoenix isn’t the only X-Men movie expected to get released. New Mutants, which stars Sophie Turner’s Game of Thrones cast-mate, Maisie Williams is said to have an Aug. 2, 2019 release date.

New Mutants is the final X-Men movie of Fox’s franchise giving Disney and Kevin Feige free reigns over the X-Men property. There’s a chance McFeely and Markus stick around to use them or some other Marvel characters.

"“There are deep-bench characters where I’m like, if you roll that guy out, I couldn’t resist. There is a great Moon Knight movie to be made, but I don’t know what is.”"

Moon Knight is a Marvel character we could see in the MCU pretty soon. Will the dynamic duo take him on? If so there’s a lot of people who’ll line up to see it. With Endgame being the final nail in the coffin for Disney/Marvel’s Phase Three; we hope the next phase has fresh new heroes in the MCU.