The way I see it, Days of Future Past was the outlier of the main series of X-movies. None of their other movies have performed nearly as well. I think it was a combination of Hugh Jackman in the center role, the original cast returning (nostalgia = $$$), great word of mouth from fans and critics, and Jennifer Lawrence in promotions at the peak of J-Law fever before the backlash hit into high gear. Apocalypse performed well compared to the other films outside of Days of Future Past. I think Fox probably expected better but it did fine.
The future of the FoX-franchise is bright: Logan's creative team (Mangold and producers, with the support of Hugh Jackman) have expressed interest and already said there are talks in an X-23 movie with Dafne Keen. A longtime X-Men fan Josh Boone is helming the dark New Mutants spin-off. Deadpool shows no signs of stopping and X-Force should only add to that hype train.
Maybe this is why Marvel might be concentrating their chokehold strategy on the Fantastic 4 instead since that has a more realistic chance of reverting back into Marvel's hands?
Yes. Marvel needs to be exposed and shamed for this.
If you remove the China bump, DoFP and Apocalypse didn't perform nearly as well. DoFP was about par for the course without the China bump, which is fine, but Apocalypse domestic gross is the second lowest of the franchise and even the China boost was a good $100M lower than DoFP.
That's not to say X-Men is going anywhere. Deadpool alone means X-Men has a long future ahead of it. But the actual X-Men films were on a decline before Deadpool and Logan hit. Even if Mangold comes back for an X-23 film, what made Logan so good was that Jackman wouldn't sign off until the script was exactly how he wanted it. Basically the same creative team was there for The Wolverine and it wasn't anywhere near as good.
Fox still has a future planned out for the X-Men and it's looking like they want to experiment with the brand then pump another Apocalypse. That need to have an X-Men universe is still strong and can last for years unless a mega bomb happens to one of their movies. F4 is a wildcard. That third reboot has to be their final chance but at this point I also see Fox just wanting to hang on to it just for shits and giggles.
Simon Kinberg is still in charge of the X-Men universe. He's even directing the next mainline X-Men movie. As long as he's involved we won't get another Logan, it'll just be lackluster Apocalypse over and over again. The movies will still come, but even if they stopped making money to the point where Fox pulled the plug, Deadpool counts toward the license and we'll be seeing those films for some time.
I could see Fox trying to keep F4 alive, but if the next film bombs as much as the last two it's just losing money for Fox. I can't see them keeping the license and losing money solely to spite Marvel.