The success of Thunderbolts*…er, The New Avengers, has already earned director Jake Schreier a serious promotion. Deadline reports Schreier is being eyed to direct Marvel’s X-Men reboot.
This is huge for Schreier, who began his career with the terrific sci-fi comedy, Robot & Frank, before directing the 2015 John Green adaptation Paper Towns and, finally, Marvel Studios’ hit Thunderbolts* in his first major studio effort. Now he’s in early talks to direct the anticipated reboot of the X-Men franchise.
X-Men will have a screenplay by Michael Lesslie, known for Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth and Assassins Creed movies. He also co-wrote the screenplay for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
I’ll admit to being unsure about this move if it plays out that Schreier gets the gig. The X-Men are my all-time favorite superteam, and a big part of me wishes for a director whose more dynamic. Thunderbolts* wasn’t the most exciting movie visually. But I also like that Marvel is looking to a director with a proven track record of success in capturing complicated team dynamics, and complicated team dynamics is pretty much what the X-Men are all about.
Now, all I want to know is who’s playing Longshot?
Seriously, it’s unclear how Marvel plans to tackle the X-Men. Ryan Reynolds is writing a Deadpool team-up movie that sounds a lot like X-Force. We’ll see some of the Fox-verse characters in Avengers: Doomsday, but what happens from there? Will they stick around? Probably not. I expect a whole new round of casting Marvel’s merry mutants.
