There's a huge amount of excitement surrounding Marvel Studios' plans for its X-Men reboot, and we have a couple of eXciting updates today.
Filmbase.uk has shared news on a handful of upcoming movies and TV shows, all of which are scheduled to shoot in the UK. Among them is the X-Men reboot, which could reportedly begin filming as soon as this year.
That would put the movie right on track for a 2028 release, though the next Saga of MCU storytelling is still expected to begin that year with Ryan Coogler's Black Panther 3.
It's also being reported that Kasra Farahani will serve as X-Men's production designer. He previously worked on Loki and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and promises to be a stellar addition to this new take on the mutant team.
After all, Farahani has so far dreamed up the unique world of the Time Variance Authority and created the retro-futuristic alternate reality that Marvel's First Family calls home. One can only imagine what his take on the X-Mansion or Krakoa will look like in X-Men.
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier has been tapped to helm X-Men, while The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' Michael Lesslie is reportedly penning the screenplay. It's unclear whether the latter is working on reported rewrites; Schreier may have brought someone else in, similar to what happened with Thunderbolts*.
In that instance, Eric Pearson wrote the first draft before Joanna Calo came on board to make some changes. She previously worked with Schreier on Beef.
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.
Back in August, Schreier confirmed that he's officially begun working on the reboot. "I can’t say anything about it, but we’ve started work on X-Men, and that’s obviously very, very exciting," he revealed.
"There are so many things that I didn’t know about before I started [Thunderbolts*]," the filmmaker added, explaining how his previous experience in the MCU will benefit the long-awaited debut of the mutant team in the franchise that began in 2008 with Iron Man.
Schreier continued, "The biggest learning curve for me was the proportion of the action to the more emotional, character-driven scenes, and how, even though it’s more shooting days than I’ve ever had, they get eaten up quite quickly by the action stuff. By the time we got to the end of it, it felt like, 'Oh, now I feel like we get how to do this a little bit better.'"
That came after he said the "core idea" of X-Men is "complexity," describing the movie as "an incredible opportunity with super interesting characters and [much] internal conflict. These characters are wrestling with their identity and place in the world—that’s inherently interesting and complex material."
Before Marvel Studios reboots the X-Men, the team will return in Avengers: Doomsday, with actors from 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise reprising their roles for the first time in the MCU.
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.