None of the previous movies were DOFP.
This is a story that is both epic and cerebral. Like TDK, its drama and spectacle packaged together as summer fare.
The previous films, mainly X3, barely scratched the surface of what a gargantuan scale an X-Men film can achieve.
With a $250 Million budget, good reviews, strong marketing & the star power of a Jackman/Fassbender combo, this EPIC CBM can easily level HP8 & Hunger Games' Domestic BO.
TDK, THE AVENGERS, THE HUNGER GAMES, HP8 = Scope.
Scope makes money.
This would be the first X-Men film designed to achieve scope.
Once again you're missing the key point here: Normal moviegoers don't care about DOFP. The vast, vast majoiry of normal moviegoers haven't read DOFP. It's not a selling point for anyone but fanboys who read (and enjoyed!) DOFP. Who are a minority and not the main group FOX should be appealing to when deciding how to run the sequel.
Scope is also not necessarily a selling point; the last time X-Men did "scope" we got X3, which left a really bad taste in people's mouths and is the movie people will think of when presented with i'EPIC X-MEN MOVIE". X-Men at this point shouldn't be about "scope" anyway, it should be about character. It's easy to do both when you have one main character (TDK). It's near-impossible to do both when you have multiple (Avengers). I also don't think it's all that fair to use Hunger Games or HP in that list... those movies were phenomena because of the insanely popular books they were based on; books that appealed to bigger and more intense masses than X-Men CBs do. Harry Potter had 8 films that take place in a span of 7 years, so they had the buildup (and the book backstories) to make epic and character work. I'm not sure why you added HG to the list to be honest, it wasn't an epic movie story-wise or filming-wise and its budget was a very small 80M. And even it with all its ubiquitous fandom and positive reviews has only made a little over 660M WW.
250M budget is way too much. They really don't need that much coin, and considering how "well" XMFC1 did I doubt FOX is eager to put up that much dough. They'd have to make
twice that amount, and that's just for breaking even. It's just not gonna happen. Ticket prices may be higher, but attendance is sinking. And keep in mind, studies have shown that studios are lucky to break even on 3D tickets, if XMFC 2 opts for that route. :/ A max 180-200M budget (before tax credits) is more likely. They went over budget last time because of time constraints, but this time instead of 11 months they have about 2.5 years.
And I really think you need to give up on seeing Hugh Jackman in this movie in anything more than a cameo. It's not his film, and as popular as he is I think (providing Wolverine 2 does okay) FOX would probably opt for a third film with him alone rather than add him to this cast. It would just be another dash in the list of "continuity between XM and XMFC that doesn't add up".Not his age, which most people have figured out is because the guy is perpetually in his 30s, but the fact that he spent 2 movies with Charles and Magneto and Mystique and they never once mentioned how he had worked with them/been a thorn in their side/whatever. This
can be explained with "alternate timeline" BS which is kind of an awful and frustrating and bloody
copout form of storytelling. And again, one more thing that they'd need to explain in a very time-limited movie. It's just not worth it to bring him on.
XMFC2 will have enough big stars to propel it, with Fassbender and Lawrence Really Big Deals right now and McAvoy being a quiet A-lister himself. Not to mention whoever they bring in as the villain. They really don't need Wolverine for this. The last two movies he was in destroyed people's faith in the franchise, and the burn from 2 utterly wretched X-Men film is the real reason XMFC was a bit of a BO flop, not because Wolverine wasn'tin it. XMFC restored a good deal of people's faith in the films, which is why its sequel will do better, but still not good enough to warrant a 250M budget.
