X-Men fans are guaranteed a glimpse at the characters in December, when—according to their very own Avengers: Doomsday teaser—Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier, Ian McKellan’s Magneto, and James Marsden’s Cyclops will return. It marks the first full-scale entry of the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Deadpool cracked open the door. After that, the X-Men will get their own reboot film, which is currently in the works.
Jake Schreier, who made last year’s Marvel misfits team-up Thunderbolts, is directing the X-Men movie, and he’s tapped in a pair of Thunderbolts script collaborators to help him write it: Lee Sung Jin, creator of Netflix’s Beef, and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo.
So far not much is known about the story. But Lee did offer a tease in a new Deadline interview. Asked what it’s like returning to the MCU for the X-Men movie, after having such creative freedom on Beef, he said he actually felt more limited while working on Thunderbolts.
“I’d say there were actually more parameters on Thunderbolts because it was plugging into an existing arc and existing characters, whereas with X-Men, Kevin [Feige] just wants to take a big swing and start anew, not be beholden to any of the movies that have come before,” Lee said. “And Jake Schreier has such a clear vision in terms of wanting to get back to character first and to what is exciting about those early [Chris] Claremont-run comics, which was all about team dynamics. There were a lot of soapy elements to those comics. We’ve been in the room every day together. Kevin and Louis [D’Esposito] are so dialed in, and they have such incredible instincts that it’s been fun to just blue-sky.”
Lee made it clear he is an X-Men fan from way back. He loves the comics, and he used to watch the TV show on Saturday mornings with his father. “So to be able to look around this Marvel conference room and have every X-Men character on the board and be able to spitball and freestyle on ‘What about this person?’ [is] so emboldening, because you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, this isn’t going to be a safe movie. This is actually going to be a really exciting new take.'”
His target audience is, well, himself. “It’s, ‘Would younger me want to run to the movie theater to watch this? Are we honoring all the amazing work that the comics set up? Are we playing it safe? Are we pushing things?’ It’s just trying to look at my childhood self, who loved these characters so much, and making sure we’re doing right by him and all the other fans that love X-Men,” Lee explained.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
