Key Takeaways
- Disney acquisition: Disney acquired 20th Century Fox over six years ago, paving the way for the X-Men’s integration into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Director’s excitement: Jake Schreier has confirmed he is working on the new X-Men film, expressing great enthusiasm for the project.
- Distinctive approach: Schreier indicated that the upcoming film will be “recognizably different” from previous X-Men movies.
- Marvel Studios' vision: Kevin Feige emphasized the importance of appealing to a younger audience with the new X-Men film.
It’s been over six years since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, setting the stage for the X-Men’s entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve seen a few X-Men characters pop up in recent years, but Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts*) told Empire that he’s finally started work on the much-anticipated X-Men movie.
“I can’t say anything about it, but we’ve started work on X-Men, and that’s obviously very, very exciting,” he said. “There are so many things that I didn’t know about before I started [Thunderbolts*]. 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.’“
In an interview last month, Schreier was asked if the new film would be “recognizably different” from the X-Men movies produced by 20th Century Fox. “Yeah, I think that’s fair to say,” he said. “There’s that red sniper dot out there somewhere, you know… But to be able to explore all of the ideas that are inherent to that rich source material, but also at the scale inherent to the source material, that’s like a very rare and fortunate opportunity. That’s very exciting.“
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is pumped to bring the X-Men into the Marvel family. “Jake’s an incredibly smart guy, and he’s an incredibly talented filmmaker. We had a great experience with him on Thunderbolts*,” Feige said. “And if you saw that movie, what he did with those character interactions, he also has his pulse on, shall we say, a younger demographic. He’s younger than me for sure, but he’s tapped into that in a way that I think was important for Thunderbolts*, much more important for X-Men. Because X-Men, as it was in the comics, will be a very youth-oriented, focused and cast movie.“
Before we get this new group of X-Men, we’ll reunite with a few of the OG mutants in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The film is set to feature appearances from Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr, Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner, Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkhölme, James Marsden as Scott Summers, Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy, and potentially more. Doomsday is set to be released in theaters on December 18, 2026.
