Everyone’s raving about Deadpool lately, but that’s not the only X-Men spinoff film set in the rapidly growing superhero cinematic universe at 20th Century Fox.
Another project in the works is a film based on Marvel’s New Mutants series that would focus on the younger characters in the X-Men universe. The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone was announced as the director of New Mutants back in May 2015, and development is apparently continuing on the film, according to franchise producer Simon Kinberg.
Kinberg, who produced the X-Men franchise for Fox and penned the scripts for several installments of the series, recently spoke at length about development on New Mutants and offered some hints about the tone of the upcoming film.
“Deadpool was so different from the mainline X-Men movies, [but] New Mutants … It’s maybe not as different as Deadpool, but it has its own unique, original voice to it,” Kinberg told IGN. “That’s the fun for me, working in the X-Men universe, creating these sort of standalone movies that have a different vibe to them. And New Mutants has more of a YA [Young-Adult] vibe to it.”
There haven’t been many updates on the New Mutants movie since Boone was announced as the film’s director. The filmmaker initially gained attention for his work on the 2014 adaptation of John Green’s young-adult novel The Fault in our Stars, which earned more than $307 million worldwide.
Created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, the mutant team known as The New Mutants debuted in a 1982 issues of Marvel Graphic Novel and went on to star in their own series that ran from 1983 until 1991. The series focused on the teenage — and occasionally younger — residents of Charles Xavier’s academy for mutants, and featured a relatively fluid cast that changed as certain characters matured and moved on to other series. The New Mutants series famously hosted Deadpool’s debut in the Marvel Comics universe, with the character first appearing in a 1991 issue of the series.
Given the early stage of development on the New Mutants movie, Kinberg didn’t offer any hints about what to expect from the cast of characters being considered for the film.
“There’s a long, long list of names, and I’ll tell you some of the names on that list I don’t even know,” he said. “That’s how deep it goes.”
Some of the characters who had recurring roles in the comic book series have already been brought to the screen in the X-Men movies, including Sunspot and Warpath, who both appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
There’s currently no timeline for production to begin on the New Mutants movie.
