In some ways, The X-Men film franchise was Marvel’s first cinematic universe. Even though, all of the characters came from one brand, the two separate X-franchises merged when Days Of Future Past happened. The film series always tried to give the fans what they wanted out of it, but the movies never quite reached the heights of their cousins over at Disney. It’s an impressive fete that the series stretched twelve movies with four different sets of sub-franchises. Had New Mutants been released on time, we would have had thirteen films and five sub-franchises.
Just about everybody who became an X-Men fan before and after the movies were released gravitated towards Wolverine. Between his popularity in the pages and Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of the Canucklehead, he has been the focus of plenty of X-Men movies, and posters for X-Men movies. We still have a few years before Disney comes out with any sort of X-movies so in the meantime let’s take a look back at the posters for all of the X-Men movies.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
It’s no surprise that the worst film in the original series also has the worst poster. The Last Stand went with the obvious Wolverine claws to form the three of X-Men 3 (which the movie has actually never been referred to, even though it is the third movie). There was so much chaos going on this movie, you’d think there would have been a better poster.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Only slighting more engaging than the poster for The Last Stand is the poster for the slightly less terrible Origins movie. Wolverine’s face is at least on this one. They might have done well to highlight Sabretooth as well. Besides Jackman, Liev Schreiber’s performance as Sabretooth was the only thing worth watching.
X-Men First Class (2011)
Also known as “When Erik Met Charles,” X-Men First Class is one of the better films in the entire series. It’s a fun buddy movie between the two until their tragic schism. But you wouldn’t know it based on this understated poster.
Just a shot of the sign for the school. It’s as if 20th Century Fox was gum shy about releasing any information, and who would blame them since the last two films released were terrible.
X-Men (2000)
It was nearly twenty years ago that the X-Franchise started. Comic book movies were slowly starting to crawl out of the muck and be considered worth marketing and treating with reverence. Which meant a lot of the marketing was still rudimentary. The original movie’s poster didn’t have much going for it, except this tale of the tape type of shot.
X2: X-Men United (2003)
From the opening scene of a mind-controlled Nightcrawler assaulting the White House to Wolverine’s assault on Striker’s soldiers; there’s a lot to love about the second X-movie. The poster though wasn’t much better than the first film’s one-sheet. It’s an action movie and we’re still just looking at faces.
Dark Phoenix (2019)
Say what you will about the final Fox X-Men movie, but Dark Phoenix’s poster is at least pretty cool. The theatrical release poster understandably puts Sophie Turner front and center.
While it’s colorful and features a lot of characters, points get deducted here for what seems like two Cyclops characters on the poster - since when are there two Cyclops?
The Wolverine (2013)
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is about as Teflon as they come. While The Last Stand and Origins were about as bottom of the barrel as mainstream comic book movies could go, Jackman was never the issue. Fans (and Jackman) were ready for a movie like The Wolverine. Based on the X-Man’s journeys in Japan, the poster wasn’t much, but it was sure better than the previous X-Flicks’ posters, showcasing three of the film’s three stars ready for action.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
After Days Of Future Past, the First Class cast struggled to find its footing. As evidenced by the last two X-movies. But as far as posters go, the art for Apocalypse was all any X-Fan could ask for. Lots of mutants all ready for war with the world’s first mutant, En Sabbah Nur. It looked like something right out of an early nineties X-Men splash page, which was never a bad thing.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)
The best of the First Class movies and one of the best of the original cast movies, Days Of Future Past was an X-Fan’s dream. Fox made the smart move by straight up adapting one of the classic X-Men stories and it paid off. The poster is exactly what it should be (unless it was going to be a take on the classic cover). Every major character, past and present, ready for action. A fitting tribute to merging both casts.
Logan (2017)
The best X-flick hands down is also one of the most compelling comic book movies of all time. The Wolverine’s on his last legs. He’s still fighting though, hiding Charles and taking care of him and his growing dementia. A young mutant girl falls into his care and we’re off to the races in a mutant version of Paper Moon. The poster is the perfect visage of a battle hardened, world weary X-Man, living with the pain of over one hundred years of a life being hunted.
Deadpool (2016)
It’s simple, but effective. Debuting around Valentine’s Day 2016 and actually having a love story at its core turned out to be the perfect way to introduce Deadpool properly into comic book moviedom.
The poster of Deadpool says it all without saying much. If you know anything about the character, you’ll think it’s a cute meta-image. If you don’t, you’ll wonder what the fuss is about.
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Deadpool riding a unicorn float doesn’t get much more comic book lunacy than that! Just like every superhero poster of this era, every character that is in the movie is crammed into the action. But with Domino, Cable, and the Merc With A Mouth front and center, you know who we’re watching out for in this amaze-balls sequel.
