X-Men Movies Wiki

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List of undeveloped films

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Various films were in development at 20th Century Fox for the X-Men film franchise. Due to production delays and the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company, many of the planned films were never made.

James Cameron's Wolverine and the X-Men[]

Around 1989, Stan Lee and Chris Claremont entered into talks with both Carolco Pictures and Lightstorm Entertainment to develop a film adaptation of the X-Men comic book series, with James Cameron as producer, Kathryn Bigelow as director, and Gary Goldman as writer. Bob Hoskins was slated to star as Wolverine, and Angela Bassett was attached to star as Storm. Claremont also contacted Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to revive the character of Jean Grey due to the character's demise in "The Dark Phoenix Saga" comic book storyline. However, the project entered development limbo when Lee then piqued Cameron's interest on the long-planned Spider-Man film after the defunction of Carolco.

Bryan Singer's X-Men 3[]

Bryan Singer, the director of the first two 20th Century Fox X-Men films, left the project in July 2004 in favor of developing Superman Returns for Warner Bros. Pictures. Singer stated that he "didn't fully have X-Men 3 in my mind" in contrast to a fully formed idea for a Superman film and interest in joining that franchise. By the time of his departure, Singer had only produced a partial story treatment with X2 screenwriters Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty, who accompanied him to Superman Returns. The treatment focused on Jean Grey's resurrection, which would also introduce the villainess Emma Frost, a role intended for Sigourney Weaver. Frost was an empath manipulating Jean's emotions in the treatment and, like the finished film, Magneto desires to control her. Overwhelmed by her powers, Jean kills herself, but her spirit survives and becomes a god-like creature, which Dougherty compared to the star child in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

X-Men Origins: Magneto[]

In December 2004, 20th Century Fox hired screenwriter Sheldon Turner to draft a spin-off X-Men film, and he chose to write Magneto, pitching it as "The Pianist meets X-Men." In April 2007, David S. Goyer was hired to direct. Turner said the script was set from 1939 to 1955, and it follows Magneto trying to survive in Auschwitz. He meets Xavier, a young soldier, during the liberation of the camp. He hunts down the Nazi war criminals who tortured him, and this lust for vengeance turns him and Xavier into enemies.

In May 2006, Ian McKellen said he would reprise the role using the computer-generated facelift applied to him in the prologue of X-Men: The Last Stand. Lauren Shuler Donner stated that the film would need McKellen to anchor the story, which would take place in flashbacks. With Goyer's hiring in 2007, it was said actors in their twenties would play the characters. McKellen reiterated his hope to open and close the film in July 2008. [1] The film was planned to shoot in Australia for a 2009 release, but it was delayed by the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. In April 2008, concept art, including one of a younger Beast, was being designed.

In June 2008, the X-Men Origins prefix also applied to Wolverine was confirmed, and the project was seeking approval to film in Washington, D.C. By December 2008, Goyer said filming would begin if Wolverine was successful. The story was moved forward to 1962, and involves Xavier and Magneto battling a villain. [2] Ian McKellen confirmed that he would not be reprising his role as Magneto, citing his age as a barrier.

In 2009, X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner stated that the movie may never be made. Donner also said that "the studio has a wealth of potential stories, and they have to stand back and decide which ones to make. And Magneto, I think, is at the back of the queue. Maybe it'll get made in five years – who knows?" Both Donner and Bryan Singer have stated that Magneto will probably not be produced, as the plot of X-Men: First Class "supersedes" the story of the planned film and that many ideas from the film were already incorporated into First Class.[3]

X-Force[]

In July 2013, Jeff Wadlow was hired to write and direct a film adaptation of the X-Men spin-off comic-book series X-Force.[4] Mark Millar, the creative consultant for 20th Century Fox's Marvel Comics based films at the time, stated that the film would feature five characters as protagonists.[5] After the release of Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds said that Deadpool would appear in the film.[6]

By May 2016, Simon Kinberg was in the process of rewriting the script.[7] In February 2017, Joe Carnahan had signed on as director, as well as a co-writer with Reynolds.[8] By September of the same year, Drew Goddard was attached to write and direct. Rhett Reese said the film would be an R-rated take on the X-Men. Kinberg, Reynolds and Donner will produce the film.[9] In September 2018, Kinberg said that Goddard would begin work on the script after the release of Bad Times at the El Royale.[10]

Gambit[]

Gambit is an unproduced American superhero film based on the Marvel comics character of the same name. It was intended to be an installment of the X-Men film franchise. Before its cancellation, the film had been written by Josh Zetumer based on a story by the character's creator Chris Claremont. Channing Tatum was set to star in the title role. Léa Seydoux and Lizzy Caplan were cast as Belladonna Boudreaux in different points of the film's development, while Daniel Craig was considered for the role of Mister Sinister.[11] Set mainly in 1984, Zetumer's script also included characters such as Dani Moonstar, Multiple Man, Marrow, Rictor, Vanisher, Henri LeBeau, Fifolet, Jacob Gavin, Jean-Luc LeBeau and Julian Boudreaux, with a cameo from Mystique.[12][13]

Tatum was looked at for early attempts to include Gambit in the X-Men films, but was unavailable for that character's film introduction in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Taylor Kitsch portrayed the character instead, but was not well received. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner expressed interest in a Gambit film starring Tatum in early 2014, and the actor officially signed on that May. The film had been in development hell since then, with Rupert Wyatt, Doug Liman, and Gore Verbinski attached as director to the film at different times over the years and the film's release date also pushed back numerous times. Gambit was scheduled for release on March 13, 2020, but development of the film was placed on hold due to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney. After taking over the film, Disney cancelled it in May 2019.

Dark Phoenix sequels[]

In May 2016, Kinberg said that Dark Phoenix would be the first in a new trilogy focusing on the younger versions of the original X-Men characters who had been introduced in Apocalypse. It was initially planned as a two-film story, with the parts to be filmed back-to-back. However, in late pre-production, the studio decided to only produce one film with the prequel cast, as the new management did not want any more X-Men movies set in the past due to the reception of X-Men: Apocalypse, resulting in rewrites such as replacing the Hellfire Club with alien antagonists. However, Kinberg still hoped that the Phoenix story could continue in a potential sequel. There were also plans for an eventual third film that would have been a crossover with the New Mutants series based on the "Inferno" storyline, but those plans were ultimately cancelled after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney caused the film rights to revert to Marvel Studios. This resulted in footage being cut from both Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants (2020) that had been intended to be expanded upon in sequels.

Claremont confirmed the two-film plan and revealed that this film centered on Jean as Phoenix and the second was going to feature Dark Phoenix. According to Claremont, the film's purpose is to make the audience fall in love with Jean, while the purpose of the second was to break their hearts.

According to visual effects supervisor Greg Butler, Dark Phoenix was meant to be an origin story about Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix. While the cosmic aspect of the saga would have been adapted in the second part of the two-film story. In June 2017, it was rumored that the Shi'ar alien race would be featured in the film, and Angelina Jolie was being looked at for a role, though she was not expected to accept the part. Chastain was also potentially being considered for the same character. Chastain herself had admitted her character kept changing, adding that she did not even know that her character was named Vuk until she saw the film.

Claremont remarked, "My problem with both iterations of Dark Phoenix onscreen, the original by Brett Ratner and the newer version by Simon Kinberg, is, I don't think you can do it effectively in ninety minutes. You can tell a good story in that timeframe, which I think Simon did, but it's not the evocation of the story that Dave and John and Paul and I created, it doesn't have the impact of knowing the characters and their dynamics and building to it conclusively in this narrative way... The challenge is, in terms of a canon like X-Men, it's more like Harry Potter and Hogwarts, or Game of Thrones. It needs time and space to evolve and to bring the reader or viewer in and give them a result that's worth the investment of that time."

Kinberg stated that, if he had four hours to tell the story, he would have included the Hellfire Club and Lilandra Neramani.

The New Mutants sequels[]

Josh Boone and Knate Lee pitched a trilogy of horror-themed films based on the New Mutants. They created PDF comic books for each film in the trilogy.[14]

New Mutants: Brazil[]

New Mutants: Brazil was the working title of the planned sequel to The New Mutants. Antonio Banderas was in talks to portray Emmanuel Costa, the father of Roberto da Costa. He would have appeared in the post-credits scene of The New Mutants and had connections to the Hellfire Club. The film would have focused on Roberto and the New Mutants traveling to Brazil to reunite with Roberto's estranged archaeologist mother, whom Emmanuel would try to kill over his own business interests.[14]

Karma was planned to appear as a villain who would eventually join the heroes at the end of the film. The techno-organic alien Warlock was also going to appear, especially since he and Karma couldn't be included in the first film as Josh Boone wanted a core team to focus on.[14]

New Mutants: Inferno[]

The third and final movie of the New Mutants, planned by the director and writer Josh Boone, was to be a free adaptation of the Inferno saga. Boone also said that the movie was going to be focused on Magik.[14]

Boone said: "The third one was gonna be like a Magik, Anya Taylor-Joy-related Inferno one. We were ambitious in our minds."[14]

Alpha Flight[]

In February 2017, Kinberg stated that Alpha Flight and the Exiles were characters being developed by the studio, for film adaptation.

Exiles[]

In February 2017, Kinberg stated that Alpha Flight and the Exiles were characters being developed by the studio, for film adaptation.

Multiple Man[]

In November 2017, a film centering around Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man was in development with James Franco starring in the lead role. Allan Heinberg was attached as screenwriter, with Kinberg and Franco as producers.

Kitty Pryde[]

In January 2018, Tim Miller was announced to be directing a film centered around Kitty Pryde. In February 2018, Brian Michael Bendis was hired to write the script.

X-Men: Fear the Beast[]

X-Men: Fear the Beast was the title of a spin-off film pitched by Byron Burton, former assistant to editor/composer John Ottman while he was working on X-Men: Apocalypse. Ottman was skeptical of the idea that Beast could carry his own film, but when Burton said he could complete a script in two weeks, Ottman gave the aspiring screenwriter a chance to prove the idea could work.[15]

After reading Burton's draft, Ottman decided to join the project and rework the script as a $90 million film. Fear the Beast would have been set in the late '80s, opening in a snow-covered Inuit village that was being stalked by a mysterious creature. Ottman likened the film to John Carpenter's The Thing, due to both settings involving an "inhospitable environment". The story would then jump forward to Hank McCoy living in the X-Mansion, where he would be struggling to keep his mutation under control with a serum that was introduced in X-Men: Days of Future Past. His beastly nature surfaced during a Danger Room sequence, where the "Friends of Humanity" would have also made an appearance. Early in the first act, it would be revealed that Hank had been helping a scientist with a similar mutation.[15]

Hank provided the scientist with a sample of his serum, but would later discover that the man was the one terrorizing the Inuit village at the start of the film. It would culminate in a showdown where Hank teamed up with Wolverine, who was located by Professor X using Cerebro. Fear the Beast ended with a tease of Mister Sinister having watched all of the proceedings. This was going to be a set up to Sinister being a multi-film villain orchestrating things.[15]

Ottman passed the idea around to people at 20th Century Fox, but because Fear the Beast involved core X-Men characters such as Professor X and Beast, the film would needed to be signed off by Simon Kinberg. Kinberg was the key architect behind the X-Men films and was working on Dark Phoenix at the time. He politely declined to read the script to avoid being influenced by it, as he had plans to reintroduce Wolverine into the X-Men films after Hugh Jackman retired from the role. As such, Wolverine being used in any other film would have muddled Kinberg's plans. However, Ottman did not mind, as he would have pushed to direct the film himself had Fox been interested.[15]

Ottman was constantly reworking the script to avoid any problems that would have showed up in post-production. Both Ottman and Burton noted that the version of Fear the Beast they originally pitched was an early draft that would have changed over time.[15]

Omega Red[]

An outline of an Omega Red film was written by Byron Burton and John Ottman. It was planned to be a follow-up to X-Men: Fear the Best, which teased Mister Sinister as a multi-arc villain orchestrating events behind-the-scenes. It would have been set in the late '80s and involved Sinister testing the X-Men.[15]

X-23/Laura[]

A film based on X-23 likely set after Logan, had began production in 2018 with James Mangold returning to direct, and X-23 creator Craig Kyle writing the script. It had gotten to the script writing stage before the Disney buyout. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/logan-hugh-jackman-laura-movie-recasting-wolverine-1051147/

Fantastic Four vs. X-Men[]

In 2016, Simon Kinberg expressed his interest in having a crossover between the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, which would have seen the two teams fighting each other over differing ideals. After the failure of Fantastic Four (2015), the film was shelved.

X-Men/Fantastic Four/Deadpool/Daredevil crossover film[]

In 2011, First Class writers Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz were hired to write a script featuring all the Marvel characters Fox had access to, including the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Deadpool. The script would have involved:

“Johnny Storm go supernova while trying to apprehend the villain Molecule Man. This would result in him accidentally blowing a hole in Manhattan and in response to the carnage, the government is forced to introduce the superhero registration act. The heroes from both teams would be split on opposing sides, and one of the key fights was set to feature Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) taking on Mr. Fantastic, a battle that would end with Reed Richards pinning Wolverine down, extending his hands until they're one molecule wide, and then, using them as scissors to cut Logan's arms off. After a series of equally intense events, the heroes eventually make peace with one another, and the post-credits scene would've set up the next film with the tease of a Super-Skrull invasion.”

Paul Greengrass was being courted to direct but was unable to come to a deal with Fox. After the success of First Class and the script of Days of Future Past being written instead, this movie was passed and Fox decided to give the Fantastic Four their own reboot. [16]

X-Men: First Class direct sequel[]

While director Matthew Vaughn was still signed on to direct sequels to X-Men: First Class, his plan was to do a film set in the 1970s that featured the First Class characters and a younger version of Wolverine, who would have been played by Tom Hardy or another actor. Days of Future Past was planned as the finale to the trilogy, which involved Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen reprising their roles for the film.

However, when Vaughn completed the Days of Future Past script and presented it to 20th Century Fox, the studio liked it so much that they decided to immediately go ahead with Days of Future Past as the sequel to First Class instead of Vaughn's original idea. This was one of the reasons why Vaughn left the X-Men films to work on Kingsman instead, as he felt that the film executives were rushing to do Days of Future Past instead of building up to it properly.[17]

X4 and X5[]

At a Fox Blu-ray press event in Beverly Hills in September 2009, Lauren Shuler Donner stated that she is currently "cooking up plans for" an X-Men 4. However, she stressed that it has yet to be pitched to the studio.[18] Shuler Donner later pitched Bryan Singer on doing a fourth installment of the previously established X-Men franchise, following the completion of X-Men: First Class. In March 2011, Shuler Donner revealed that the film was in "active development at Fox," saying, "We took the treatment to Fox and they love it... And X4 leads into X5".[19]

Tim Miller’s Deadpool sequel[]

Before Deadpool's release, Fox green-lit a sequel with Reese and Wernick returning to write the screenplay. The involvement of Reynolds and Tim Miller was confirmed at the 2016 CinemaCon in April, but Miller left the film at the end of October over "mutual creative differences" with Reynolds. The next month, David Leitch signed on to direct the sequel. Leitch first made a short film, No Good Deed, which was written by Reese and Wernick. Deadpool 2 was released on May 18, 2018, with Baccarin, T. J. Miller, Uggams, Hildebrand, and Kapičić all returning. Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz joined them as Cable and Domino, respectively, who are members of X-Force alongside Deadpool.

Fox’s Deadpool 3[]

By November 2016, with development underway on Deadpool 2, Fox was also planning Deadpool 3, which was said to include the X-Force team. With the confirmation that Leitch would direct Deadpool 2, Fox was looking for a separate filmmaker to direct Deadpool 3. In March 2017, Reese clarified that though Deadpool 2 sets up the X-Force team, a future film focused on the team would be separate from Deadpool 3: "[X-Force] is where we're launching something bigger, but then [Deadpool 3 is] where we're contracting and staying personal and small."

In May 2018, Reynolds stated that a third Deadpool film might not be made, given the franchise's shift of focus to X-Force, though Reese and Wernick felt a third film would "absolutely" be happening after Reynolds took a break from the character and X-Force was released, which they compared to the Iron Man trilogy releasing Iron Man 3 (2013) after the crossover film The Avengers (2012). Also, Leitch expressed interest in returning to the franchise. In January 2021, Reynolds revealed that the plot of the film would have involved Deadpool and Wolverine going on a road trip, in the style of the film Rashomon.

In his announcement, Reynolds implied that Jackman would have returned for the project. Karan Soni was briefed about the plans for the film, which he revealed to his boyfriend Roshan Sethi in their first date, having been told that the film would bring Jackman back as Wolverine and that it would involve Deadpool traveling to the North Pole to save Christmas.

After the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company in 2019, all planned X-Men films in development were cancelled, including X-Force and Fox's Deadpool 3, with Marvel Studios taking control of the franchise, alongside the Fantastic Four.

Notes[]

References[]

  1. ↑ https://screenrant.com/plot-synopsis-x-men-origins-magneto/
  2. ↑ https://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/x-men/235939/x-men-movies-you-never-saw
  3. ↑ http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=18789
  4. ↑ 'Kick-Ass 2' Filmmaker Tackling Fox's 'X-Force'
  5. ↑ Fox's 'X-Force' Movie Will Feature Five-Person Team, Millar Teases
  6. ↑ Getting an X-Force Movie Made Is Ryan Reynolds' Next Priority
  7. ↑ X-Force Movie: Simon Kinberg Writing; Will We See X-23?
  8. ↑ X-Force Film Gets A Director & Reynolds To Co-Write
  9. ↑ Drew Goddard To Direct & Write ‘X-Force’ Deadpool leads Black Ops Force
  10. ↑ Gambit Movie Will be a Romantic Comedy, Says Producer
  11. ↑ http://splashreport.com/exclusive-daniel-craig-lucky-bond-gambit/
  12. ↑ http://splashreport.com/exclusive-gambit-story-details/
  13. ↑ https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/04/20/x-men-breaking-down-the-2015-gambit-movie-script/
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 [1]
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 X-Men: A 'Beast' Spinoff Was Pitched to Fox Before 'Dark Phoenix'
  16. ↑ https://www.comicbookmovie.com/x-men/x-men-vs-fantastic-four-civil-war-plot-details-revealed-for-massive-crossover-film-that-almost-happened-a168821
  17. ↑ Exclusive: Matthew Vaughn Talks His Plans for First Class Sequels
  18. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100322191808/http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/03/bryan-singer-and-the-xmen-together-again.html
  19. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110401032536/http://blastr.com/2011/03/producer-reveals-there-wi.php
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