Although aspects of the 20th Century Fox’s X-Men era will be revisited soon through Deadpool 3 (as evidenced by its cast list), this property will be rebooted at some point within the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. When and how will this happen? That’s one of Marvel Studios’ most tightly-guarded secrets at the moment, though the MCU has already brought mutants into the fold through projects like Ms. Marvel and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But when it comes specifically to the main X-Men team, filmmaker Simon Kinberg has offered advice on how to introduce these characters to the MCU.
Kinberg goes way back with the X-Men, having first co-written X-Men: The Last Stand, then reprised his writing duties on X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, with the latter also marking his directorial debut. Additionally, he produced those last three movies, as well as X-Men: First Class, Deadpool, Logan, Deadpool 2 and The New Mutants, and the TV shows The Gifted and Legion. While Kinberg’s mutant days are behind him, he did have the following to say when Slashfilm asked him what advice he has for the filmmaker to ends up handling the MCU’s version of the X-Men:
If I had one piece of advice, honestly, it is a very cliché thing, but it just is true: The strength of the X-Men is the characters. As much as there's great storytelling and great plot and incredible action sequences and all of those things are going to be required of the movies, as they are in the comics, what sets, for me, the X-Men apart is that they are the richest collection of characters in any comic book ever.
There’s certainly no question that X-Men is one of Marvel’s most popular properties, with these characters having already enjoyed plenty of attention outside of the comics even before they made their theatrical debut in 2000. Fox covered a lot of X-Men ground across the 13 main movies and spinoffs released over the course of two decades, so naturally the MCU has its work cut out with figuring out a way to put a fresh spin on these superheroes. While Simon Kinberg acknowledged that story and spectacle will remain essential for whatever the next cinematic X-Men adventure is, he also wants to be sure whoever ends up putting this reboot together doesn’t forget that the most important thing is to make these starring characters stand out.
It was reported in late September that Marvel Studios would be setting up meetings for X-Men reboot pitches, though it’s “more than likely” that a writer won’t be selected until 2024. Whoever ends up getting the job, it couldn’t hurt for them to pick Simon Kinberg’s brain on these characters. Yes, Dark Phoenix was critically panned and brought Fox’s main X-Men film series to an underwhelming end, but his years of experience is still a worthy well to tap into.
He’s also not the only X-Men veteran to give advice on what the MCU should do with these characters. Last year, screenwriter Michael Dougherty suggesting that this franchise should depict humans “naturally start to evolve into mutants as a survival mechanism.” While it’ll surely be a while until we learn which X-Men characters will be put front and center in the MCU, Nate Moore, who’s produced six of this franchise’s movies, mentioned Storm and Bishop as characters he “could pitch you ideas all day of.”
As soon as concrete information concerning what the MCU has planned for the X-Men comes in, we’ll pass those details along. In the meantime, keep track of what’s on the way with out guides of upcoming Marvel movies and upcoming Marvel TV shows. Those interested in more of Simon Kinberg’s work can watch his TV show Invasion with an Apple TV+ subscription.
