Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox was completed in 2019, and comic book fans have been waiting to see the X-Men in the MCU ever since.
There have been occasional references to mutants (Ms. Marvel and Namor, for example), while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, and Deadpool & Wolverine all hinted at what might be to come by paying homage to the past. Along the way, Marvel Studios put its own comic-book-inspired spin on familiar characters like Professor X, Beast, and Gambit.
Many of the original big screen X-Men will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, but looking beyond that, a full-blown X-Men reboot is in the works and likely to kick off the next Saga of storytelling.
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier has been tapped to helm X-Men, while The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' Michael Lesslie is said to be penning the screenplay. There have been lots of rumours about what's to come in the movie, including supposed plans to focus on Mister Sinister and Apocalypse.
Cyclops and Jean Grey will reportedly be co-leaders of the team, with Angel, Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler among those reported to be part of the post-Avengers: Secret Wars X-Men team.
Today, scooper @MyTimeToShineH is claiming that Stranger Things and Enola Holmes star Millie Bobby Brown is being eyed to play a member of the X-Men in the upcoming reboot. Shadowcat quickly comes to mind, and to a lesser extent, so do characters like Rogue and Jean Grey.
However, the insider hasn't shared any word on Brown's possible role in the movie.
It's important to note that nothing is confirmed, but the British actress has a large fanbase and is no stranger to leading high-profile big-budget projects. It's also worth noting that the Russo Brothers will reportedly oversee the next Saga as consultants; they previously worked with Brown on Netflix's The Electric State.
Over the summer, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed that the biggest way the MCU's X-Men will differ from what we've seen in the past is by embracing the comics in a way filmmaker Bryan Singer never did.
"There've been more X-Men movies than there were Spidey movies or Fantastic Four movies, so a lot has been done," Feige explained. "But again, because it's because it's almost a comic legacy onto itself, there's so much more to tap into it and there's so many sagas within sagas for X-Men that that's part of what we're talking about now is which saga to grow and build to while doing the most important thing, which is introducing all of these characters and giving them their due in our first film."
"I'm not going to speak to the makeup of the characters that will be in the first movie, but look at Galactus, look at Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine, look at Wolverine in Deadpool & Wolverine," he continued. "We want to embrace that which was not embraced 25 years ago when I was around on those early X-Men movies, which is those comic-accurate looks."
Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot doesn't have a confirmed release date but is expected to arrive in theatres in 2028.