[Snowflakian]

If they do an X-Men movie line, realistically they could get away with doing only a handful of base bucks then different heads and arms.

The movie costumes outside of a few are pretty much all the same with only the head, arms and some gear being different.

So they could do wolverine and cyclops off of the same movie costume buck. Colossus might need to be his own. Blink would need to be her own. Kitty pryde would be a base costume female buck(unless they did the open jacket version, in which case they'd have some parts fodder for the IM3 Pepper Potts too). Storm would need her own for the future costume but otherwise could share the same buck as Jean Grey as it would be the base costume again but they're a little taller than Kitty Pryde. Iceman would be the base costume again, but would need to be a little shorter than cyclops/wolverine. Could probably get a warpath out of that one too.

So maybe 4 base bucks. 2 male and 2 female, and you've pretty much covered all the normal costumes(non future versions). Some minor variations in the arms and legs and heads would add more diversity. Throw in some parts and gear from previous lines to bolster it (which also could create fodder for a Pepper Potts figure later). Costs would be lower overall and easier to recoup plus it'd provide fodder for future usages too depending on what characters get introduced later in the X-Men cinematic world.

The same could be done with First Class yellow and black costumes, as most were the same only with minor variations.

So it's entirely possible because of how non-individualized the costumes mostly are.

I wouldn't mind seeing a re-release of the jacketed wolverine from his initial movie line either. Then they could round it out with some comic figures like Emma Frost and some others the have the parts for but never found an extremely decent release route for. Maybe even an alpha flight box set that had both Aurora and North Star.

The draw back to Avengers movie figures at least is that unless they introduce more characters, we'll hit an oversaturation point after Age of Ultron. Outside of Ultron and any future villians, the core cast is so well covered in the scale that even the minor costume variations may not be enough to keep moving units.

It seems they are planning ahead on this though. With GOTG not getting covered that well in the scale yet, and others still waiting in the wings for the expanded side like Falcon(when he gets a costume) and Ant-man, or even an unmasked bucky/winter soldier, there's still some fodder for Avengers, but not much. Outside of Hawkeye's costume variation, black widow's different hairstyles, and minor Captain america revisions and ironman armors, there's not much that'll change with their figures, or for most, possibly not enough changed to warrant purchases. That leaves the focus mostly on the new characters as the sought afters, and hopefully means we might see some shield expansion as well. (Personally, the only figures I'm looking forward to out of AoU are Ultron, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, but Witch and Quicksilver may not get real costumes until next movie after it too. Then there's the cinematic ant-man costume coming up too.)

So the smartest thing all around right now would probably be to run a dedicated MCU line that allows them to bolster it out with Agents of SHIELD stuff as well as the movies(GOTG included) which allows for repacks of older that didn't quite make it to shelves before(Sif, Warriors 3, tony stark, Ironman Mk 42, etc,) alongside some of the previous that never got figures like Rhodes, Pepper Potts(extremis with ironman gauntlet), Deathlok, etc. This would hopefully also open the shelf space up to do the same for the X-Men Cinematic that could include the rebooted Fantastic 4. We already have a dedicated comic line with the Infinite toys.

They need to find a way to consolidate shelf space but also still get the figures out that are in demand and the ones people will still buy too. So that'd be the direction I'd lean, with the rebranding/new packaging happening to spotlight each current movie of the time.

We're really starting to near that point of "how many times will people re-buy the same character" over-saturation point. So there needs to be some reason to push the why on that. Like doing better articulated figures, or some other reason to replace previous purchases.

Assuming that 3 or 4 is around the limit of repurchases of the same character barring major costume changes and a civvie clothes figure. That limits it some. Captain America for example is at the limit now with past costume, avengers costume, commander rogers costume, and next movie's costume possibly. He's not exactly like Ironman where a new armor is almost expected every movie. X-Men has a similar potential though. With the time periods altering the costumes each outing, 3 variations of Magneto already would probably be bought up without a second thought. Same to two different Wolverines (DOFP future and trilogy suit). The whole time periods and evolving costumes presents a mild solution to that problem for the X-Men cinematic universe as a toy line as does how the movies keep expanding exposure of characters like Blink, Warpath, etc. It really depends on how it's approached overall though. Each movie we don't get a line for X-Men is that much more that can be covered later. Which is beneficial to Hasbro once Avengers reaches that point of them only repackaging the previous movie figures and a new villian or two.