Marvel licensed the filming rights of the
X-Men and related concepts, such as mutants, to
20th Century Fox. Fox created a
film series based on the franchise. Years later, Marvel started their own film franchise, the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, focused on characters that they had not licensed to other studios, such as the
Avengers. Quicksilver and
Scarlet Witch were part of a dispute between the two studios. Fox would claim the rights over them because they were both mutants and children of
Magneto, the villain of most of their films, while Marvel would also claim those rights because the editorial history of the characters in comic books is more associated with the Avengers rather than the X-Men. The studios came to an agreement allowing both to use the characters, with the condition that they cannot make reference to the other studio's properties. The Fox films cannot mention them as members of the Avengers, while the Marvel films cannot mention them as mutants or children of Magneto.
[102]
- Quicksilver appears in the films X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019), played by Evan Peters.[103][104][105][106] In Days of Future Past, Quicksilver is an American teenager, thus his name is Americanized to be Peter Maximoff rather than Pietro. Revealed to be an acquaintance of Wolverine's in the future, he is enlisted by Wolverine, Xavier, and Beast to break Magneto out of prison. Director Bryan Singer shot all of Quicksilver's scenes in 3,600 frames per second.[107][108] Returning in Apocalypse, Quicksilver takes on a much larger narrative role,[109] rescuing almost the entire student body of the Xavier School single-handedly from an explosion caused when Havok accidentally destroys the X-Jet with a blast aimed at Apocalypse. He goes on to participate in the final battle with Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) before joining the newly reformed X-Men. In Apocalypse, Quicksilver has learned that Magneto is his father, but chooses not to tell him. He also makes a brief cameo appearance in Deadpool 2 (2018), along with other team members from Apocalypse.[110]
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson signed on to play Quicksilver in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron,[111][112] and first appeared as the character in a mid-credits scene of the 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.[113] In Age of Ultron, Pietro Maximoff and his sister Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) are volunteers of Hydra, both acquiring superhuman powers after volunteering to be experimented upon.[114] Harboring a lifelong hatred for American arms manufacturer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), whose bombs killed their parents, they side with Ultron (James Spader) against the Avengers, before later switching sides. In the final conflict with Ultron, Quicksilver dies a hero's death saving the lives of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and a small child. Despite Taylor-Johnson signing a multi-picture deal,[115] producer Kevin Feige has stated that there are no plans for Quicksilver to appear in future Marvel Studios films.[116]