Prior to Disney's acquisition of Fox, a number of X-Men spin-off movies were in the works. Kitty Pryde and Gambit projects were among them, as was X-Men: Fear the Beast, a movie penned by longtime franchise editor and composer John Ottman and Byron Burton.
Now, the script has found its way online, and it certainly makes for interesting reading!
In it, we find Nicholas Hoult's Hank McCoy/Beast struggling to control his mutation before heading to an Inuit village in an effort to help an old friend. The movie soon shows the hero battling hunters alongside the Wendigo, and often veers into R-Rated horror territory before shaking things up by bringing Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine (again).
With a 1990s/early 2000s setting, Beast encounters Wolverine fighting in the same cage from the first X-Men movie. In this new timeline, Hank encounters him before Rogue does, and the two team up in the final act.
There are cameos galore, including from Mystique and Jean Grey, while the movie ends with the introduction of Mr. Sinister. He was set to be the entire franchise's new bad, with early plans calling for Jon Hamm to play the villain across multiple movies (such as The New Mutants).
Honestly, it's not great, and pretty much what we've come to expect from Fox's X-Men movies. There are moments here fans would have appreciated, but for the most part, it's full of odd continuity and creative decisions. It's also hard to figure out why Beast needed a spin-off (particularly when Hoult's werewolf-like interpretation was never overly popular).
We'd recommend giving it a quick peruse, even if it's just for the scenes with Logan. Marvel Studios now plans to reboot the X-Men franchise, though we haven't seen the last of Jackman's take on the clawed mutant as he will return in Deadpool 3 a couple of years from now.
You can read the screenplay by clicking here.