With X-Men: Dark Phoenix in cinemas now it likely brings with it the end of the X-Men universe we have known since 2000 when the first X-Men hit the big screen and 2011 with X-Men: First Class. Since 2011, James McAvoy has taken on the role of Charles Xavier/Professor X, with Dark Phoenix marking his return to the character for a 4th time.

With X-Men: First Class we were introduced to younger versions of the heroes we had known since X-Men hit cinemas 11 years earlier. At the forefront of First Class was the first meeting and on-going relationship between Charles Xavier/Professor X and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, played by Michael Fassbender.

Despite the relationship between the two being one of the highlights of First Class, McAvoy feels it was not explored as deeply in any of the following films. Whilst on The Empire Film Podcast, McAvoy revealed that not exploring that relationship further is his “biggest regret”.

James McAvoy

“To be perfectly honest, X-Men: First Class was about many characters but we sort of hung that film on the shoulders of that relationship and the genesis of that relationship. Very quick evolution and separation and divergence of that relationship. And everybody seemed to like it. It’s something that still gets talked about now. People ask us, ‘it’s one of the greatest aspects of these films’ and like, yeah we think so too. But really for Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, for whatever reason Simon [Kinberg, writer] and the studio decided not to really put us in that many scenes together or investigate our relationship. I don’t know why! I think it was a huge string to the X-Men bow and I would have loved to have seen more of it but we never got it. That’s my biggest regret. That’s my only X-Men regret probably.”

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