X-Men: Apocalypse didn't exactly light the world on fire when it released last month, with the poorest critical reception of any film in the series (save X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and week-to-week box office significantly lower than Days of Future Past's. There are countless reasons for this, not to mention the superhero saturation of the market, but a common complaint of Apocalypse is in its visuals, namely the look of its heroes and villains.
When the first look at the titular villain was revealed, disappointed fans were quick to liken him to Ivan Ooze from Power Rangers. Many were also disappointed that, once again, director Brian Singer had garbed the X-Men in plain black costumes, forgoing the colorful jumpsuits of the source materials. As is always the case with major motion pictures, a lot of options are considered before a final look is decided on. Now, a few bits of concept art have surfaced to show us what might have been.
Joshua James Shaw, a concept artist on Apocalypse, showed off a few of his alternate designs for Cyclops and Mystique on his Facebook page. While it's possible that these might have been under consideration as the heroes' primary duds for the film, a more likely possibility is that they were meant as alternate possibilities for the "90's costumes" at the film's end.
Jerad Merantz, another concept artist on the film, revealed an early take of the big bad himself on his ArtStation page. While Apocalypse's face in this image debatably looks more like his comic book counterpart than the final product, the black and white aesthetic seems slightly less in line than the movie's costuming did.
Whether or not these costumes are any better or worse than what we got is obviously a matter of opinion, but it's interesting to see what could have been. The biggest question on many fans' minds may be what the X-Men franchise is going to look like moving forward. With Apocalypse's poor box office performance, will we see a 90's followup starring the classic team in their youth? If so, will we get the classic costumes on display, or another black leather re-imagining? It wouldn't be the first costume fake-out for the series. (See Magneto's classic duds from the end of First Class.)
Are these costumes better than what we got? Are source material designs always preferable, or are there redesigns that have taken the cake? Let us know what you think in the comments section, and stay tuned to Screen Rant for all your X-series updates!
X-Men: Apocalypse is now playing in theaters. Wolverine 3 opens in U.S. theaters on March 3rd, 2017, followed by unannounced X-Men films on October 6th, 2017 (possibly Gambit), March 2nd, 2018 (possibly Deadpool 2), and June 29th, 2018 (possibly New Mutants). X-Force is also in development.
Source: Joshua James Shaw, Jerad Marantz