Marvel Studios is said to be very close to announcing a writer (or writers) for the long-awaited X-Men movie, and we may know which scribes have emerged as Kevin Feige and co.'s top picks to pen the reboot.
According to Jeff Sneider on the latest episode of The Hot Mic, Rafe Judkins and Michael Lesslie are in the mix to write the script. He believes these two are the finalists to land the gig, but notes that other writers may still be in contention.
Judkins previously worked on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Tom Holland-led Uncharted movie, and more recently served as the showrunner for Amazon’s Wheel of Time adaptation. Lesslie, meanwhile, penned the screenplay for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and 2016's Assassin’s Creed movie.
A lot of fans were hopeful that the studio would rehire former X-Men '97 showrunner Beau DeMayo to work on the live-action movie's script, but it doesn't seem very likely.
As for a potential director, Sneider hasn't heard of anyone taking a meeting, although he does back up the recent rumor that Marvel is looking for a POC to helm the project. He feels it's far too early for anyone to actually be in talks, and if the studio is interested in Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, the filmmaker hasn't been formally approached.
Feige assured fans that a reboot was in the works shortly after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox's assets back in 2019, but we haven't had a single official update until recently. There were rumors that contractual issues may have been preventing Marvel Studios from introducing new actors as established mutant characters such as Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, etc, to The MCU.
It's said that if Marvel wanted to reboot the team using any of the same characters from Fox's franchise before 2025, the likes of Simon Kinberg, Bryan Singer and co. would be, at minimum, entitled to credits and compensation, and may even have some degree of creative control as well.
We have no idea if this is accurate, but it would explain why it's pretty much been radio silence on all things X-Men since 2019, and why the only established mutant character we've seen in The MCU since is Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Beast (Kelsey Grammer) in The Marvels. Hugh Jackman is also set to return as Logan in Deadpool and Wolverine later this year.
This wouldn't prohibit Marvel from debuting new mutant heroes and villains with no connection to the earlier films, however, which we saw when Kamala Khan was ret-conned as a mutant in the season finale of Ms. Marvel. A recent rumor also claimed that Israeli hero Sabra will be introduced as a mutant in Captain America: Brave New World.
Who would you like to see writer and direct the MCU X-Men reboot? Drop us a comment down below.