X-Men Filmmaker Offers Advice on Rebooting Franchise

While a full-blown reboot of the X-Men franchise is expected for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios has only started dipping its toes into the mutant waters and it’s currently unclear when the official overhaul of the beloved characters can be expected. Even if he isn’t expected to be involved in the upcoming reboot, filmmaker Simon Kinberg, who has worked on multiple entries in the cinematic series when it was at 20th Century Fox, offered up his advice on the franchise’s future, which is to put the emphasis on characters and performers over specific sequences or action-packed events. 

“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,” Kinberg shared with /Film. “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.”

Kinberg’s involvement with the X-Men franchise goes back to before the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though that series would go on to take place parallel to what was happening within the MCU. X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which Kinberg wrote and directed, was the final chapter in the Fox universe of the series, as The Walt Disney Company acquired the studio and, along with it, the rights to those characters.

Since Disney’s acquisition of the X-Men, we’ve seen Fox versions of characters like Quicksilver and Professor X appear in MCU projects, though in ways that leaned into the idea of a multiverse as opposed to Fox stars being established as the definitive MCU versions of these characters. With the upcoming Deadpool 3, Hugh Jackman will reprise his role as Wolverine, which will help bridge the gap between the Fox universe of characters and the MCU.

Kinberg went on to emphasize enlisting talented performers and his excitement over what decisions the MCU makes going forward.

“So it’s really about the characters that will get you the best actors. Those actors will bring those characters to life in a whole new way that honestly I cannot wait to see,” Kinberg detailed. “I really am such a fan of what Marvel does and I’m obviously a massive, massive fan of the X-Men. Like the Star Wars movies. I read two comics when I was growing up religiously. I read others, but the religious ones were for me, Batman and X-Men.”

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the X-Men.

What are you hoping to see in the X-Men’s future? Let us know in the comments!