There has been a bit of speculation that Apocalypse’s origin may indeed have alien roots, and this concept art of what looks to be a spaceship may help enforce the belief they might bring-in aliens, and other worlds very soon.
In the comics, Apocalypse finds a spaceship that grants him a majority of his powers. A new quote from producer and franchise writer Simon Kinberg suggests the X-Men villain might have that aspect included into his story, and my expectations is that could lead into future films as well. His radical redesign from the Comic-Con promotion might explain this as well, and does have a bit more robotic hybrid we’ve come to know from the comics, looking slightly less human than he did before. 
When talking about Apocalypse’s look in the film Simon Kinberg, dropped the word cosmic to MTV, not once but twice. It’s extremely possible that his abilities, and technology might have connections to some of the alien races in the X-Men comics, something that has been largely overlooked as of yet, but with demands to go bigger going into space might be our best bet for future X-Men films. “I feel like we have been, the X-Men franchise, has been growing a little bit more into science fiction. I think Days of Future Past with time travel and the Sentinels took us into a slightly broader, more science fiction world than the films had occupied in the past. We felt like the movies were ready for something that was slightly more, let’s say, cosmic. Once we made the decision for Apocalypse to be the villain at the center of the movie, we wanted to be true to the comics, which are sort of, like you, say, not costume, but it’s not just a guy in a helmet. It is more cosmic.”
This takes me back to #raidersofthelostark #notallgreenscreen #xmen #xmenapocalypse A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on
It wouldn’t be the first time ancient Egypt has been linked to aliens in fiction.
Kinberg also confirmed they are connecting the X-Men films with Gambit and Deadpool into one cohesive cinematic universe, but failed to mention Fantastic Four. Sort of echoing what producer Lauren Shuler Donner has said in the past, but going further as stating they are indeed interconnected in the same universe.
“The idea is that we’ve sort of reset the timeline after ’Days of Future Past’ in some ways, and if not erased, certainly allowed for change from ’X1,’ ’2,’ ’3,’ everything from ’Days of Future Past’ forward, 1973, everything we set now becomes canon,” he said. “So the ’Gambit’ movie, the ’Deadpool’ movie, will exist in a world that acknowledges whatever happened in ’Days of Future Past’ and moving forward. Doesn’t mean they’ll always interact with those characters, obviously, it’s not like every movie has all the characters, but they all have to exist within the same rules.”
“There will be interplay between different characters in different movies.”
The cosmic side of the X-Men is quite large if you sit down to look at it, but combined with their Fantastic Four rights, Fox could make a cosmic cinematic universe dwarfing what Marvel Studios is trying to undertake.
While it’s hard to imagine where Simon Kinberg and Bryan Singer could go post-Apocalypse on Earth, one avenue is that both Jean and Scott have very strong connections to the cosmic side of things in the franchise. The X-Men canonically have many ties to outer space and large scale adventures alongside aliens. Giving the studio plenty of material to compete with stuff like Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, and Avengers: Infinity War. Placing this new casting in their own adventures, instead of rehashing the same plots over and over, going high-gear science fiction might be the right way to go. Leaving the Earthbound stories for teams like X-Force and Josh Boone’s New Mutants.
Scott’s father and brother Alex Summers aka Havok, were both leaders of the cosmic space pirate team The Starjammers. Basically, Fox has their own version of the Guardians of The Galaxy that would tie into their existing X-Men franchise. Considering that Disney has both Guardians and Star Wars ramping-up a huge release slate, there might be some pressure to release their own PG-13 cosmic film franchise. I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if the studio isn’t already developing a spin-off featuring them.
Jean is no exception, as her beloved Phoenix Saga has direct cosmic origins and fans are dying to see a faithful adaption, now that Jean is being rebooted, it’s possible this could happen. This saga is how you put the X-Men in outer space and have them teaming-up with alien races to save Earth and the rest of the universe.
Other mutant characters also have ties to outer space as well. Avalon/Asteroid M/Graymalkin, a space station that orbits Earth using alien technology has been the base of operations for Magneto, Professor X, and Cable. A change of location might benefit the X Mansion from getting destroyed and the students being targets or retribution.
Professor X is no stranger to falling for an alien, as one of his greatest loves was Shi’ar Empress Lilandra Neramani, their mutual interest just happened during the Phoenix Saga. Xavier and Lilandra, after sharing an intimate mind link, fell deeply in love and were married. Unfortunately, due to the X-Men’s involvement in the Phoenix’s rampant destruction (amongst other universal threats tied to the mutant team), the Shi’ar council demanded their marriage annulled.
This could give a reason for James McAvoy to return for a couple more films, as we do know he’s somewhat keen on coming back, if there’s something of interest for him to do with Xavier.
The Imperial Guard is another key player in the cosmic Phoenix Saga, and are good examples of how Fox could expand the franchise. The team is a mixture of many different kinds of aliens branched under the Shi’ar Empire.
There is even now confirmation of Canada’s own mutant team Alpha Flight will be joining Captain Marvel in her new comic book space adventures via CBR. An aspect that might make Fox take a closer look at including them into the cinematic universe in the future. After Deadpool getting made anything is possible at this point.
Let’s be honest, Fox is starting to run out of known X-Men villains they can use, and they’ll have to start using the cosmic villains to move forward with projects beyond Wolverine 3, Deadpool 2, New Mutants, and X-Force.
Marvel Comics has the mandate not to create any new villains for either X-Men or Fantastic Four, as if they do the film rights automatically go to Fox. Something that the studio knows very well, and they’ll soon be out of Earthbound mutant and human villains in the next couple of films.
Going to the cosmic source material makes the most sense, even more so if their Fantastic Four franchise plans do end-up get squashed. They need to use the characters or the rights will return to Marvel, and attached to those rights is a majority of Marvel’s cosmic universe, which for the most part Fox hasn’t put into good use and look foolish for doing so.
Two villainous alien races that clashed with the X-Men included the Phalanx and the Brood, who could make things very unpleasant for any planet.
Incorporating cosmic threats like Galactus could be another way the studio could go even deeper into the cosmic side of things, I feel like he’s the only way to go with a Fantastic Four sequel. Their villains are also tough-enough that they would deem a team-up with the mutants. I personally think that he’d be wasted solely in a piss-poor Fantastic Four installment, a team-up feature makes the most sense.
Plus, it’s about time Fox got their shit-together and finally gave us that Silver Surfer movie they’ve been promising for a decade. At one point screenwriter and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski (Thor, Sense8, World War Z) had been developing a script for feature film, but once the second Fantastic Four film was a disappointment the studio pumped they breaks.
“What happened was when FF2 didn’t do as well as they hoped it would do, it caused them to call into question a Silver Surfer movie,” Straczynski said. “The script that I wrote picked up right where FF2 left off. So if they do a Silver Surfer film down the road, it’ll have to be its own separate [thing].”
“It was definitely adult fare. I wanted to tell the origin of the Surfer and get into that whole thing,” he said.
Alex Proyas (Dark City, Gods of Egypt, The Crow) was also rumored to direct in the film back in 2008. However, Alex’s poor experience with the studio previously soured his interest on the project, as he stated to MTV. It’s was assumed he was wanted for the Straczynski version.
“Because it’s a Fox picture,” the “Dark City” helmer said. “And I’m determined never to work with them ever again because of my experience on ‘I,Robot.’”
Way back in 1999 the studio was looking at Guardians of The Galaxy‘s James Gunn to write a script for an early incarnation of it. Here’s what Gunn had to say about his experience almost making Silver Surfer from a post from Facebook. It didn’t get past a treatment, but it’s one of the cooler Marvel movie what-ifs out there.
“When I first moved to LA in 1999, one of the first people I met on a meeting was an exec at Fox. He told me they wanted to make a Silver Surfer movie, and I might be right for that, so I wrote an extensive treatment. It was a huge story, cosmic as hell, and featured the Silver Surfer turning on Galactus (but no Fantastic Four – this was before the first FF film). At the same time, I was approached by director Jay Roach and his producer Shauna Robertson about writing a live-action Spy Vs. Spy film. That film seemed more likely to get made, and I loved Jay and Shauna, so I took that gig instead. It was my first studio film job. Of course, in eventuality, neither movie ever got made. But people liked the Spy Vs. Spy script, so I got a lot of work because of it. That said, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I truly jumped into the cosmic Marvel pool 16 years ago.”
We know that Marvel tried to wrangle both character rights from Fox, back when Fox was running out of time to reboot Daredevil and asked for an extension. The original plan was rumored to have the pair included somehow into Guardians or Avengers: Infinity War. It’s possible Gunn’s experience writing for Silver Surfer made him a bit attached to the characters and had Marvel reach-out to Fox for the rights, as he was looking at everything cosmic at Marvel’s disposal at the time.
Three other rather large cosmic Marvel villains who first appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer that could be in the rights deal with Fox might include Blastaar, Kang The Conqueror, and even Mephisto. Any of these combined with Galactus could make for great main feature or crossover with Fantastic Four.
Skrulls would be another villainous alien force that Fox may have some access to via Fantastic Four rights, Super-Skrull and other established Skrull characters. Having the Shi’ar step in for the Kree-Skrull War wouldn’t be a terrible way of going, since it’s looking like Marvel isn’t really able to use the Skrulls in their films for whatever the reason, Fox should take advantage if they can. The Badoon is another dastardly alien race that James Gunn wanted to use in Guardians of The Galaxy, but because their rights are at Fox they weren’t allowed to use them, another win for Fox if they ever got the chance to use them.
There’s a large amount of source material Fox and filmmakers could mine for their Marvel cinematic universe, let’s just see if they’re smart enough to act on this before the rest of the First Class cast exits.