Marvel’s X-Men Reboot Could Finally Break The Mutant Curse
The new X-Men movie has new writers — and an eye on the future.
Marvel has spent the past few years building up to its next major event in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, which could deliver the end of its cinematic universe as we know it. If it is to be the end, it honestly can’t come fast enough — if only because of what’s waiting on the other side.
Secret Wars may bring a reckoning to the MCU, but it will also signal a major shift from the Avengers to the X-Men. The team-up film will even bring the old class of X-Men back into the fold, offering the cast (and those endeared to them) yet another fond farewell. I’ll never say no to a victory lap for the likes of Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Romijn, and James Marsden, cloying as it obviously is. But the MCU promises a new chapter after all that nostalgia: According to Marvel boss Kevin Feige, mutantkind will inherit what’s left of the Earth after Secret Wars. Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier is set to helm Marvel Studios’ first X-Men film, tapping an all-new cast to replace the old.
Schreier couldn’t reveal much about the project when he was first attached to it, but he’s since provided an incredibly promising update. Not only has the new X-Men gained two incredible new writers, but it’s very possible that it’ll be the first of many X-Men movies.
Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier is bringing two talented screenwriters to the X-Men team.
Speaking with Collider ahead of the new season of Beef, Schreier spoke about some of the themes he wants to bring to the X-Men reboot. “When you go back and read X-Men [comics], there’s ideology but also interpersonal drama, almost of a soap opera quality,” the director said. “Having writers who understand both how to drive ideology from personal stakes, if we get that right, that’s what will feel most honest to what X-Men can be.”
Fortunately, Marvel has tapped the creators “of the most interesting shows on television right now” — Beef showrunner Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo — to tackle rewrites for the X-Men script. It’s a reunion for the trio in so many ways, as both Lee and Calo helped with the script for Thunderbolts, as well as those for Beef Season 2.
“We’re still developing,” Schreier explained. “They have come in and are working on a draft right now, which is really exciting to be able to put that group of people together again.”
Marvel’s X-Men reboot is studying past comics and films to give mutantkind a strong future foundation.
The goal, Schreier says, is also to balance a satisfying, self-contained story with the demands of the larger MCU. “We have to make one great movie, but we always have an eye as we’re talking about it too,” he continued. “What are the different places this can go? What are the places that [have] been in the comics? What hasn’t been explored as much, and how can that be incorporated? ... Those ideas are always out there, as we have the discussions.”
It’s not outright confirmation that X-Men will sire a trilogy like its predecessors, but Schreier and co. seem to be working hard to give Marvel’s new class of mutants as strong a foundation as possible for future adventures. Given the direction that Fox’s X-Men franchise couldn’t help but fall into, that foresight is certainly appropriate. While each X-Men trilogy started strong, they were inevitably undermined by disappointing final chapters. The Last Stand brought the original trilogy to a messy end, and though Fox came back strong with a prequel series, Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix slowly but surely brought the saga back to square one. Beloved as the X-Men films are, their legacy is mired by a failure to follow through.
It’s in the MCU’s best interest to study the past so as not to repeat its mistakes in the future — but with such a stellar team assembled, Marvel Studios could very well end up breaking the X-Men curse.
