It’s the news that Marvel mutant fandom has been waiting patiently for over five years for. According to a report in Deadline, Marvel Studios is officially ramping up for their big-screen reintroduction of the X-Men franchise. Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes screenwriter Michael Lesslie is in negotiations to write the script for the new X-Men MCU movie. The film is still very early in the development process, without a director attached and no release date yet. With the massive success of X-Men ’97 on Disney+, and the return of Hugh Jackman as Logan for Deadpool & Wolverine, it seems Kevin Feige realized now is the time to get the ball rolling. MCU X-Men, here we come!
Besides the Hunger Games prequel, Lesslie wrote an adaptation of Macbeth starring former Magneto Michael Fassbender. He was also the lead writer on the series The Little Drummer Girl, featuring Florence Pugh, Michael Shannon, and Alexander Skarsgard. In terms of genre productions, he wrote the original script for the 2016 version of Assassin’s Creed. Rumors abound that the new X-Men reboot movie will focus on the X-women more than the men. Other rumors suggest the MCU X-Men film will focus on newer characters, pushing aside the likes of Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey, and Wolverine. Given the success of X-Men ’97, however, we wonder if Marvel Studios will stick to those plans.
The real question here is whether or not these new MCU mutants will arrive in enough time for the Avengers: Secret Wars movie. Right now, that film is set to premiere in 2027. Part of the appeal would be to have the X-Men participate in that giant event, along with the Avengers and Fantastic Four. The assumption was the X-Men we see in Secret Wars might be the original Fox actors. However, the fast-tracking of the X-Men reboot movie suggests they might wait until we have a new X-Men team in place. Perhaps we’ll learn more around Comic-Con and D23 time later this summer.
