With Bryan Singer’s take on the **X-Men **universe potentially winding down with next year’s Apocalypse, 20th Century Fox and writer/producer Simon Kinberg want to keep the mutant party popping. So the studio has hired The Fault In Our Stars director Josh Boone to make **The New Mutants.
Fox has made no secret of its desire to build a wider universe around the various mutants and other heroes to which it owns the rights – Deadpool is busy shooting with Ryan Reynolds back in the suit and Channing Tatum is lining up a Gambit film. The New Mutants have been rumoured for a couple of years, but this is the first real announcement about forward motion on the idea.
The question will be which of the teams known as the New Mutants will be the focus here. Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod created the original squad of teen heroes in 1982 for Marvel Graphic Novel issue four and they got their own title running between 1983 and 1991, with Deadpool popping up from time to time. They were later relaunched as X-Force, which is an interesting name since Kick-Ass 2’s Jeff Wadlow has been attached to write an X-Force film, but Deadline’s report says that Boone will be creating his own script with Knate Gwaltney.
There’s also the second New Mutants team, launched in 2003 with different members as part of the Charles Xavier’s school population. Chances are, given how the movies like to play with the continuity and make-up of teams, that we could see a blend of both.
“We’re so excited to explore this new part of the X-Men universe, and so excited to do it with Josh, who is uniquely suited to tell this story about young characters,” Kinberg says of the new plan. This one will bubble in development for a while, particularly as Boone is currently developing several projects including The Stand for Warner Bros. and The Vampire Chronicles for Universal. **X-Men: Apocalypse **arrives here on May 19 next year, and you can read more about it in the current issue of **Empire.