We're still waiting on an official announcement regarding Marvel Studios' plans for The X-Men on the big screen, but we do know that the studio has finally started development on its long-awaited reboot, with executives setting writer pitch meetings late last year.
A writer is expected to be announced fairly soon, but in the meantime, a new rumor may give us an idea of what Kevin Feige and co. are looking for, as well as some of the plans that are already in place for the script.
According to Daniel Richtman, Marvel wants a writer "who can handle both comedy and drama," as they "don't want their X-Men to be purely comedic." He's also heard that the film will introduce a few characters we haven't seen in live-action before, along with "original members we all know and love."
The insider also reiterates that the reboot will most likely focus on the female members of the team.
The previous 20th Century Fox movies introduced quite a few characters over the years, even if a lot of them only made very brief appearances. There are several notable supporting heroes and villains who haven't made their live-action debuts yet, but pretty much every major mutant has been featured in some capacity.
One scribe who would love to take a crack at the story is Loki's Eric Martin - and from the sounds of things, he's far from the only one!
"I think everybody's probably chasing after X-Men because I think that's where the richest characters are," Martin told Total Film in a recent interview. "But I mean, who knows? That's a decision for someone who's not me."
"As long as Marvel is happy, of course, I'd love to [work on more MCU projects]. I mean, Marvel has changed my life by trusting me to write this season. It was a lot of responsibility, and I hope I've earned that trust," he adds. "I think, for me, it all comes down to the characters. Do we have deep, interesting characters to work on? That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. Can I tell a deeply emotional, character-driven story with these people, and on this huge canvas?"
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.