James McAvoy casts doubt on the X-Men joining the Avengers on screen (exclusive)

James McAvoy has serious concerns about the X-Men joining the Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, once Disney’s acquisition of Fox goes through. The 39-year-old Scot plays Professor X in Fox’s X-Men films, and he’s starring alongside Samuel L Jackson – Disney’s Nick Fury in the Avengers films – in this week’s new release Glass (in cinemas 14 January).

Naturally we had to ask the stars of this entirely different type of superhero crossover about the potential for a future X-Men v Avengers movie.

“I don’t know if the X-Men could go into the Marvel universe, I’m not sure,” McAvoy, who reprises the role (roles?) of Split’s Kevin Wendell Crumb in Glass, tells Yahoo Movies UK.

“Maybe they could? But I think what’s different about the Avengers universe anyway is you’ve only got a couple of superheroes in the world. There’s a good amount, but there’s like a couple of football teams’ worth, you know what I mean?

“Whereas in the X-Men world you’re potentially saying there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of [superheroes] and the social implication of that is different.”

There are over 20 main superheroes of varying degrees of power in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with most of them expected to crop up in Avengers: Endgame later this year. Spider-Man is pretty much the only superhero in that world who has to maintain his secret identity as Peter Parker. In the X-Men films, superhero powers are a gift attributed to a human by a genetic mutation, and as such there are infinitely more super-powered beings in that movie world, and they’re generally forced to operate in secret.

Bringing the two worlds together, and maintaining both types of superheroes, will be a mammoth task for the Marvel Studios team headed up by Kevin Feige.

“In the X-Men world, [superheroes] are ghetto-ised,” adds McAvoy. “They’re ostracised and they’re feared. Whereas in the Avengers world, they’re honoured a bit more… and seen as heroes. We’re seen almost like immigrants that people are scared of in the world of mutants and humans. How do you resolve that?”

McAvoy concedes though, that if anyone can do it, Marvel Studios can.

“They’re very clever, they’ve done [the MCU] very well, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

Samuel L Jackson, who reprises the role of Elijah Price AKA Mr. Glass in M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, was much more taciturn about the prospect of an X-Men–Avengers mash-up movie.

He told us he hadn’t discussed the idea yet with his co-star, but that it would “probably” work.

“There’s a way to fit it, yeah,” he concludes.

Glass starring James McAvoy, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis, and Sarah Paulson arrives in cinemas on 18 January.

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