James McAvoy has One Criticism of His X-Men Movies

James McAvoy’s X-Men continuity admittedly ended with the fizzle that was Dark Phoenix, and it looks like he’s finally put his Professor X wheelchair behind him. With rumors going around that he could be tapped to make a return in Avengers: Secret Wars, McAvoy looks back at X-Men and reflects on what they did right and what they did wrong.

Talking to GQ Magazine, McAvoy does reveals that one of his regrets about the franchise direction was that they dropped the exploration of the relationship between Xavier and Magneto. McAvoy admits:

“My biggest criticism of what we did throughout the four movies was that after the first movie, we didn’t take advantage of the relationship between [Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto], which really formed the backbone of the first film. So it was like, why did we just eject that massive weapon?” 

We don’t really know why they decided to drop the exploration of the Charles/Erik relationship, but I’m guessing it could have something to do with Mystique being retconned into Charles’ sister, and that being prioritized before the bromance of the two mutant figureheads.

Regardless of McAvoy’s criticisms, he still had nice things to say about the studio. “It was one of the most positive experiences I’ve had with a studio,” he says, “I don’t really [see them as just] money gigs. Days of Future Past I think is one of the better films that I’ve been involved in.”

We don’t know when Marvel officially plans to bring back the X-Men, but after Ms. Marvel and Wakanda Forever, we’re getting more and more mutants in the MCU by the day.