James McAvoy Returning to ’X-Men’ Films; Lawrence and Fassbender Possible to Follow

With the release of "X-Men: Apocalypse", questions about the future of the franchise were raised as it signaled the end of contracts for James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence. Now that McAvoy, who plays as Charles Xavier in the new film continuity, has confirmed his return to the franchise, possibility of the others to follow suit would be quite big.

Posting an image on Instagram, McAvoy shared a picture of him and producer Simon Kinberg, who is connected to the X-Men franchise. On the caption of the image, McAvoy describes it as a dinner with a man building a relationship with two professors. It would be interesting to note that according to Comic Book, another image of Kinberg could be seen with the 'other professor', Patrick Stewart.

Additionally, the caption for the Instagram photo also has the actor excited for summer. A new title for the franchise, "New Mutants" will start filming in May. As Kinberg was previously quoted saying that Professor X would appear in that movie, this could be what McAvoy was referring to.

On the other hand, some reports are suggesting that "X-Men: Supernova", which follows "Apocalypse", could start filming on the same time. The second (and hopefully better) adaptation of the "Dark Phoenix Saga", Sophie Turner has confirmed to reprise her role as Jean Grey. It seems like James will have his hands full this summer.

As for Lawrence and Fassbender's return to the series, Entertainment Weekly reported that the three (Lawrence, McAvoy and Fassbender) had discussed that if one decides to comes back, the others would reprise their roles as well. While it sounds good for the future of the series, and the franchise as a whole, fans would have to wait if this agreement would be followed through.

Fox certainly needs all the star power they could get for the "X-Men" franchise. With Hugh Jackman hanging his claws after the release of "Logan" and competition with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, established names like James McAvoy could propel the franchise to greater heights.