Marvel Studios/Disney fired original X-Men '97 showrunner Beau DeMayo shortly before the animated revival show's world premiere. There are conflicting reports about what exactly occurred, but DeMayo is said to have been terminated for sending lewd photos to members of his staff, and there have been further allegations claiming that he was physically and sexually inappropriate with several of his colleagues.
DeMayo has always denied this, suggesting that his firing was simply due to homophobia, and claiming that he was stripped of his X-Men '97 season 2 credit shortly after sharing some Gay Pride Month fan art of himself in a skimpy Cyclops costume.
Now, we're hearing that Marvel may have intended for DeMayo to play a big role in the mutants' eventual live-action MCU debut.
YouTuber @She_DreadzMe believes DeMayo was set to write and consult on the upcoming X-Men reboot prior to his dismissal, and to ask him about it for confirmation. Sure enough, DeMayo then responded to a query about the project by claiming that "the intention was for me to consult or write it before I made my civil rights complaints on Blade."
Though Marvel does (finally) appear to be making progress on the elusive X-Men movie, official updates have been few and far between. All we know for sure is that Michael Lesslie is currently working on the script, and that a director is being sought.
Stranger Things alum Sadie Sink is rumored to be in contention for the role of Jean Grey, and we have also heard that the studio is interested in Wicked star Cynthia Erivo for Storm.
If some of the X-Men make their debut in the next Avengers movies (which they are rumored to do), there's a chance we could get some official casting news fairly soon.
During a recent interview with Discussing Film, Kevin Feige was asked how it feels knowing that "we’re closer to seeing the X-Men and Avengers together on the big screen."
"It is extremely emotional, on a personal level, to have done a movie with Hugh after 25 years and me being a small part of that first X-Men movie. And knowing that, thanks to various corporate studio entity deals, we now have 1000s of characters back — characters I hadn’t frankly thought about in many years because we didn’t have the rights to them. Now that we do, it is great fun thinking [about who we can finally]. Our animated series X-Men ’97 was sort of the first taste of people reuniting with the X-Men mythology and that storyline. The response to that series just further excited us about how to bring the soap opera and the saga of the mutants to the MCU."