Comics legend Chris Claremont is disappointed with Fox’s X-Men movies

X-Men creative force Chris Claremont admits he is unimpressed with how 20th Century Fox handled his material.

Reactions to 20th Century Fox’s cinematic X-Men output have been mixed, to say the least. This summer’s Dark Phoenix, which was meant to wrap up the two-decade-long saga, was a critical and box office bomb. Pulling in only $32.8 million on opening weekend, $65 million domestic and $252 million worldwide, it is the worst-performing installment in the franchise.

Given that data, it’s no real shock inveterate X-Men writer Chris Claremont — whose stories they drew from — isn’t very happy with the way things turned out. During a New York Comic Con panel, he expressed his displeasure with Fox, saying “I wished they’d gotten my films right.”

AiPT! Comics shared the scoop on Twitter. According to their coverage of NYCC, Claremont was at the end of a discussion on big-screen adaptations of Stan Lee’s work, which makes up most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Dark Phoenix was the second time after X-Men: The Last Stand that the studio tried to loosely adapted Claremont’s “The Dark Phoenix Saga.” Claremont was also the mind behind “Days of Future Past,” The New Mutants, and Gambit. “Days” was successfully adapted as a sequel to First Class, while spinoff The New Mutants may never see the light of day. In addition, the Gambit movie has reportedly been scrapped.

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Gambit was meant to star Channing Tatum as the mutant thief from the bayou, Remy LeBeau. Producer and Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg brought Claremont on board to write the story. Josh Zetumer (known for very little beyond 2014’s RoboCop remake) took over and was given screenplay duties.

Claremont — with Marc Silvestri — also created Doctor Nathaniel Essex, better known as fan-favorite villain Mr. Sinister. His shadowy presence was teased at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse and in Deadpool 2, but Fox failed to properly introduce him. Consider that one more thing of Claremont’s that the studio botched.

Fox never took much advice from Marvel, having their own ideas about X-Men continuity. They kept using the same characters as villains, from Mystique and Magneto to Stryker and the Phoenix Force and discouraged actors from reading comics. It got awkward on X-Men: Apocalypse when Olivia Munn brought her expertise to set through her role as Psylocke.

Munn said this to GQ in July about her experience working with director Bryan Singer and Kinberg:

"“When I was doing ‘X-Men,’ I was actually surprised that the director and the writer didn’t even know that Psylocke had a twin brother,” …“And I had to talk to them about a lot of different things about Psylocke and some other parts of the world that they didn’t even know, and that, as a fan, was very frustrating.”"

Claremont returned to Marvel Comics and X-Men recently with an exclusive deal. He wrote GeNEXT and GeNEXT: United in 2008 and 2009 and revived his old continuity with X-Men Forever. A Nightcrawler ongoing was added to his list of new books, but the title’s run wrapped up in March 2015.

Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox reclaimed the rights to X-Men for Marvel Studios. They and Kevin Feige are bound to reboot the franchise and make it part of the MCU, but that is not part of Phase Four or Five plans at this time.