Earlier this year, Collider broke the news that Deadpool director Tim Miller was working on a mysterious X-Men movie, and that Kitty Pryde might be the lead character in a solo adventure for the young mutant. Miller knows his way around mutant movies, but when word came down that comic-writing legend Brian Michael Bendis has been hired to write the script for the movie, we got even more excited. Couple this with the fact that the working title for the mystery project reportedly is 143, and our minds started whirring. Is this going to be a straight adaptation of The Uncanny X-Men 143? Could the clue be that blatant?
If it turns out that Tim Miller and Brian Michael Bendis are working on adapting Uncanny X-Men issue number 143 for a feature film, this is basically what we will be in store for. THR notes that Bendis will pen the script for Miller to direct, and while Bendis wrote several books for Marvel (as well as DC), the story in X-Men 143 is credited to Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
Titled "Demon," the story is set during Christmas time at the Xavier Mansion. Taking cues from standalone stories like Home Alone or even Die Hard, it follows Kitty Pryde as she fends off an attack by a N'Garai demon -- which bears a striking resemblance to the Xenomorphs from Ridley Scott's Alien movies.
This could be a very fun way to tell a standalone, exciting Kitty Pryde story without having to get too wrapped up in the other X-Men plot threads that dangle around the current timeline. You could cast a few other X-Men to show up -- Storm, Colossus and Professor X are a few of the famous X-Men who cameo -- but the focus needs to remain on Kitty, as she is basically the Ripley of this story. It could be a fun, Christmas-themed standalone X-Men movie, and I very easily could see Tim Miller rolling in a few X-Men side characters the way he used Colossus in the initial Deadpool movie.
Also, if done properly, this story could follow in the footsteps of the horror mood that's being set by Josh Boone's New Mutants, an origin story for that team that's set in a psychiatric ward and looks to take its cues from A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Fox appears to be willing to explore genres with their superhero movies moving forward, so New Mutants and the Kitty Pryde Christmas Demon movie might be a trend in that direction:
We will keep you updated on any developments in the Tim Miller and Brian Michael Bendis collaboration. Do you think that they tipped their hands to the adaptation of Uncanny X-Men 143? Since that is a Kitty Pryde story, I'm willing to bet this is what it happening, but it could also be a he red herring. In the meantime, bookmark our Upcoming X-Men Movies guide to stay up to date on all that we know about the franchise's future.
