X-Men: Every Movie, Ranked Smallest To Biggest Budget

After over 20 years and 11 movies, the X-Men franchise will be coming to a close with New Mutants, bringing about an end to the Fox era of these characters. While people are excited to see what Marvel Studios does with these stories, it would be impossible to ignore how previous installments paved the way for not only the MCU but superhero media in general.

These films differ in numerous ways, not only in tone and story, but also in how much they cost to produce. So here is every X-Men movie, ranked smallest to the biggest budget.

11 Deadpool: $58M

While it technically isn’t an X-Men movie since the only member of the team featured in the movie is Colussus, the character has made it clear that it is still a part of the same universe. Despite being the cheapest, it also happens to be one of the franchise’s most popular films due to it being a major departure from the previous ones. It managed to break records as not only one of Fox’s biggest opening but the biggest X-Men debut, with it currently holding the 3rd spot as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

10 X-Men: $75M

Since superhero films weren’t as popular back then, which something this film helped to change for the better, it isn’t unreasonable to believe that the executives over at Fox were willing to spend less money on a project that was a major risk. Fortunately for them, the risk paid off and the film raked in $296,872,367 worldwide and was one of the first films of the decade to usher in the new era of superhero movies.

9 Logan: $97M

Logan was the franchises’ second R-rated project after Deadpool meaning that the studio would be less worried about putting in more money into it.

The film had a lot going for it seeing as the director, James Mangold, promised a more grounded take on Wolverine as well as the film being the final outing of Hugh Jackman as the iconic character after 17 years in the role. All those elements ended up being clear factors in its $614,228,432 box office run.

8 Deadpool 2: $110M

Following up on the highly successful first film, the budget for Deadpool 2 almost doubled with the sequel itself even making references to the prior film’s success. It earned a little more than a million more than the first film at $786,680,557, making it the highest-earning film of the franchise. It is also the second-highest-grossing R-rated movie with the only film above it being Joker.

7 X-2: $110M

People were understandably excited to see X-2 after how well the first one did and that translated into ticket sales since the film able to make $406,348,630 which was more than the first film. The success it received, made it one the few superhero sequels that was both more financially and critically successful than its predecessor.

6 The Wolverine: $120M

Despite the hate Fox got for focusing on the character so much and how poorly X-Men Origins did, they decided to give Wolverine a solo second movie. The Wolverine was mostly independent of the other X-men stories and barely connected to the other films. Even though it got mediocre reviews, the film made $416,456,852 resulting in a success.

5 X-Men Origins: Wolverine: $150M

The film was intended to kickstart a series of films telling the origins of other members of the team including one centered around the character of Magneto which never came to be.

Despite being a financial success, the film was critically panned and is often considered the worst of the films, something that is also made fun of in both Deadpool movies.

Set in the 1960s, X-Men: First Class was intended to be a prequel that would show the origins of the team and set up the individual stories of the franchise’s main characters Professor X, Mystique, and Magneto. It is also the first film to see McAvoy and Fassbender step into their roles as Charles and Erik. While the film did underperform against expectations, making $355,408,305 worldwide, it also perfectly set the stage for Days of Future Past which did significantly better.

4 X-Men: Apocolypse: $178M

X-Men: Apocolypse was said to focus younger versions of the classic X-men characters following Days of Future Past and X-Men: First Class. Despite the amount of star power in the movie including Olivia Munn as Psylocke, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse, it wasn’t enough to keep the film from being considered lackluster by most fans. At the end of the day, the film made $542,537,546 meaning that it turned a profit even if it wasn’t that well-liked.

3 X-Men: Dark Phoenix: $200M

The lowest-earning film in the franchise, Dark Phoenix was touted as being the final installment into the 2-decade long story of the X-Men. It was also the studio’s second time attempting to adapt the Dark Phoenix Saga with the first time being in X-Men: The Last Stand which was also a critical failure, unfortunately, Dark Phoenix could not manage to replicate that film’s financial success with it only making $246,356,895 and costing Fox losing $133 Million and losing more money than any other movie that came out in 2019.

2 X-Men: Days of Future Past: $205M

Days of Future Past was the movie responsible for resetting and completely messing up the timeline of the film. Despite the damage it did to the continuity, it is often considered of the franchise’s best and is the highest-grossing film in the franchise to not feature Deadpool. It made $747,862,775 at the box office, totally justifying the over $200 million put into making it.

1 X-Men: The Last Stand: $210M

The most expensive X-Men movie which is reasonable considering all the different storylines the film attempted and failed to juggle including the Dark Phoenix and mutant cure plots. It was the first X-Men film to cost over $200 Million to make and made $459,260,946 at the box office. However, the film also received a lot of negative reception with it earning a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes and making it the franchise’s first rotten film.

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