We recently learned that X-Men director Jake Schreier has turned to his Thunderbolts* collaborators, Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo, to pen the upcoming Marvel Studios reboot.
"*The New Avengers" may not have broken box office records, but it was a critical success and is considered one of the MCU's best movies by many for its impactful exploration of mental health. X-Men is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit given how familiar audiences are with the property, so this creative team tackling mutants bodes well for what could be the Mutant Saga.
Deadline recently caught up with Sung Jin, and he had plenty of positive things to say about Schreier's vision for the X-Men franchise. The writer also dropped some hints about the stories that may be inspiring the filmmaker.
"Well, my favourite part about working in the Marvel world is honestly collaborating with Jake Schreier, who's a genius, and he has a very clear vision for what he wants to do with X-Men," he explained. "I think he's a huge fan of the comics. He reread, you know, all the early comics lately."
"There's a lot of romance, there's a lot of heart, there's a lot of aspects of X-Men past. Just, you know, obviously the themes in politics and so, I think Jake wants to kind of, you know, breathe fresh life into this franchise," Sung Jin continued. "It's early, but we've been meeting with Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito] regularly, and I think true fans will be excited."
Schreier has already pointed to Chris Claremont being a key source of inspiration, and it sounds like we can expect a similar vibe to the Uncanny X-Men relaunch. That put characters like Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler front and centre alongside the likes of Cyclops and Wolverine way back in 1975.
In a separate interview with Collider, Schreier also pointed to exploring facets of the X-Men that have, so far, only been touched on in the comics. Something likely to delight many of you is the mention of plans to potentially embrace the "soap opera quality" of this team's adventures:
"I think that obviously, first things first, we have to make one great movie, but we always have an eye as we’re talking about it, to what are the different places this can go? What are the places that it’s been in the comics, what hasn’t been explored as much, and how can that be incorporated?"
"And what are some of the different avenues that we could take that feel like the kind of less-trodden path that we could go down? But those ideas are always out there, as we have the discussions."
"In Season 1 of Beef, and people will see in Season 2, but then it always starts from the personal. And when you go back, and you read all of X-Men, and you see how much of it was also, obviously, the ideology is a huge part of what drives the narrative, but also the interpersonal, and there’s a soap opera quality to it."
"When you go back and read those original comics, I think having writers who understand both of those things and how to kind of drive that ideology from more personal risks, if we can get all of those things right, and in a way, that’s the thing that will feel most honest to what X-Men can be."
You can hear more from Sung Jin on X-Men in the player below.