'Thunderbolts*' Director Jake Schreier In Early Talks For Marvel Studios’s X-Men Movie

Let’s start filling out that film schedule more definitively, alright?

A storytelling shift from a child of abuse to the Children of the Atom. Following a very successful opening weekend for Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios is in talks with the film’s director Jake Schreier to direct their X-Men film written by The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes writer Michael Lesslie. Schreier became their top directing choice after a meeting early this week.

The tip in Schreier’s favor came as Thunderbolts*’s release brought in $162 million globally and a very glowing general consensus of critic reviews. It was just a couple of weeks short of a year since Lesslie’s involvement was revealed, demonstrating the studio has been taking it slow and thoughtful in finding the right person to take the helm, refusing to rush the process, just as how it handled writing pitches from candidates in that regard last year. The executives are also very aware of Schreier being a big fan of X-Men comics, which was apparently an early sign that he would clinch his own pitch meeting. Wooed by other studios even before Thunderbolts* released, Schreier began turning down jobs as the indications were arising.

Marvel Studios Execs Are Gearing Up To Hear Pitches For Their 'X-Men' Movie

This wouldn’t be the first time Marvel Studios has rewarded directors with bigger assignments following success. They first expanded the Russo Brothers’ workload to the Avengers films following Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War. The Fantastic Four: First Steps started as such for Jon Watts, the director of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first Spider-Man trilogy, before he stepped down and turned into such for WandaVision director Matt Shakman. Destin Daniel Cretton signed a multi-year deal with Marvel Studios and Onyx Collective to develop and produce television projects for Disney+ in December 2021, just three months after the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, while also returning for its sequel. The series ended up being Wonder Man, which premieres in December, but he also was attached to direct Avengers: Kang Dynasty until November 2023 as that identity began to collapse. Ultimately, he would move over to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opens July 31, 2026.

With there being at least 6 years since gaining the X-Men film rights, there’s been sprinkles of homage to that previous continuity in Phases Four and Five. It started with Evan Peters’s charmed appearance as Pietro in WandaVision, as in most Marvel continuities Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were Magneto’s children before the pettiness began, but because they were X-Men and Avengers, rights overlapped. Patrick Stewart played Professor Charles Xavier, as he did in Fox’s X-Men films, in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, more specifically his Earth-838 Illuminati member doppelganger. He was equipped with an animated series-accurate hoverchair, and said series theme song playing as entrance music. It also played when Kamala Khan was revealed to be a mutant in Ms. Marvel. Kelsey Grammer played Beast once again, though likely not his original iteration, in a post-credits scene of The Marvels, before Deadpool & Wolverine brought the merc with the mouth into the MCU, buddying up with a Hugh Jackman Wolverine, and together in the Void they’d come across Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth, Dafne Keen’s X-23, Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce aka Pyro, and putting ten years of development hell to rest as Channing Tatum finally got to debut as Remy LaBeau aka Gambit. And finally, it was revealed in late March that there will be one final reunion for the original 20th Century Fox X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday: Grammer, Stewart, Tatum, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique, and James Marsden’s Scott Summers aka Cyclops. With maybe more to come. Of course, this new movie will be an all-new iteration to carry on to the future.

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Source: Deadline