X-Men: Apocalypse may be concluding the new prequel trilogy of X-Men movies from 20th Century Fox next year, if one doesn’t count the Deadpool and Gambit movies that will also release in 2016, but that mutant-packed year won’t be the end of Fox’s plans with Marvel’s gifted youngsters! The studio has just made the announcement today that it is developing a new movie for the X-Men movie universe, inspired by the New Mutants series at Marvel Comics.
Fox has already lined up Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) to direct New Mutants, with Boone also penning the script alongside Knate Gwaltney. Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg will continue to operate as producers for New Mutants as well.
As the title suggests, New Mutants involves a new squad of teen heroes, independent of the main mutant team of X-Men in the Marvel Universe, training to be future defenders of tomorrow. Think of it almost as Marvel’s version of DC’s highly celebrated Teen Titans series, though one that specifically focuses on mutants. While New Mutants is a largely independent comic book spin-off of the X-Men series in its various comic book incarnations, it does include several X-Men personalities here and there, including Professor X, Magneto and Kitty Pryde, among some others. Fan-favourite anti-hero, Deadpool also happened to be introduced in a New Mutants comic, specifically New Mutants #98!
Some of the New Mutants were already featured in last year’s previous X-Men movie release, X-Men: Days of Future Past, namely Blink, Warpath and Sunspot. It’s possible that their presence may have been foreshadowing a New Mutants movie before the official announcement, particularly given Hugh Jackman confirming that he will be retiring as Wolverine after the third and seemingly final Wolverine movie that is set to release in 2017. Since now-superstar, Jennifer Lawrence has also announced that she is retiring her younger Mystique character after X-Men: Apocalypse next year, it seems that 20th Century Fox wanted to keep the franchise going with some new faces, since it seems like many of the most beloved actors in the mix are all walking away in favour of other projects.
Naturally, it’s not yet known what the movie’s roster of New Mutants will be, including whether Bingbing Fan, Booboo Stewart or Adan Canto may reprise their roles from X-Men: Days of Future Past as Blink, Warpath or Sunspot, respectively. 20th Century Fox did confirm long ago however that there is a movie project set in the X-Men film universe planned for 2018, and it’s probable that New Mutants is that mystery movie at this point. Fox is also working on some kind of adaptation of another X-Men comic book spin-off, X-Force, which is currently believed to be being re-tooled as a pitch for a television show, and may no longer be a movie.
Keep mutating Eggplante for all news and updates on New Mutants, and other projects related to the X-Men film universe.