The Foxverse of Marvel heroes are slowly being introduced into the MCU. We’ve already had Deadpool & Wolverine with that defunct universe’s two biggest characters, and this week brings The Fantastic Four: First Steps (review here) as the introduction of the Marvel’s First Family of superheroes. Next up is the X-Men, and Kevin Feige has given an update to Nerdist, including a confirmation of Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts*) as director.
“Yeah, it’s official. Jake Schreier is doing ‘X-Men’ for us. Very lucky, and we’re very, very lucky to have him, and very excited to have him. And so we’re beginning. It’s all starting now. Script’s underway. Jake’s an incredibly smart guy, and he’s an incredibly talented filmmaker,” Feige said.
“We had a great experience with him on Thunderbolts, 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. Not, he’s younger than me, for sure, but he’s tapped into that in a way that I think is important. It 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.”
The script is being written by Michael Lesslie, known for Macbeth and Assassins Creed. But perhaps most notable in this case is that he penned The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Feige says this X-Men will be very youth-focused, and that’s something Lesslie has experience writing to.
One thing Feige is committed to is giving the X-Men the comic book-style costumes that were so badly missing from the Fox movies. To be fair, those early X-Men films were of a different time, and even the comics were stripped down to present a sleeker look similar to The Matrix. But as we saw with Logan’s classic yellow and blue costume in Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s long past due to bring the colorful superhero costumes back…
“Look at Galactus […] look at Wolverine in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’. We want to embrace that which was not embraced 25 years ago,” Feige said in a recent interview captured by Screenrant.
The casting of X-Men should be very interesting, as we know nothing of the team composition. Will Marvel pull from the Jim Lee era of the comics? Maybe go classic Chris Claremont rosters? Or something more recent? Only time will tell.
