Ok after the Atomic Box Office Bomb that was Dark Phoenix, Marvel has stated they’re in “no rush to reboot the X-men”, but that doesn’t mean I can’t post my notes and ideas for the reboot online, it also means it has longer to reach Kevin Fiege who MUST implement them all. So here we go my list of ideas of what the new X-men must do different to the original film series owned by Fox.
New Creative team.
This may seem obvious (thats because it is) but don’t hire, Bryan Singer or Simon Kinberg to oversee the whole new Disney Marvel X-men. They’ve had their turn and they fucked it up. Now I’m not saying I’m the man to do it, I have literary zero film industry experience (despite the sheer arrogance to post about films almost as much as comics on this blog) unless we’re accepting a writing a couple of skits for youtube as film experience. I could get behind James Mangold (Logan’s Director) or Noah Hawley (Legion and rumoured to be working on a project involving Dr Doom) it should be somebody fresh.
Don’t make Wolverine the main character.
Yes we all love Wolverine, and casting rumours are flying everywhere suggesting Keaunu Reeves, Jason Mamoa or Taron Eggerton being in the role. But Wolverine was the main character of the last incarnation, and yes he is the most popular X-man ever.
But that in itself is problematic, Wolverine is a mysterious angry loner, that was how he was introduced as the scary guy in the corner (well he was actually introduced getting his ass-kicked by the Incredible Hulk). That’s his appeal, more screen time and the more we peal back and often you don’t want to actually know the real answer, that’s part of why X-men Origin’s didn’t work, the origins Mini-Series in the comics isn’t universally accepted (I only begrudgingly accept as works by Jason Aaron mention his brother Dog Logan). I would also be remised to not mention I know exactly who should play Wolverine, Henry Rollins. Rollins has everything you need to be Wolverine he’s short and angry, and don’t forget Wolverine was never a teen character, even when X-men Evolution put all the X-men in High School, Wolverine was still a middle-aged man who had to take orders from Cyclops.
So if not Wolverine who do you make the main character, well X-men is littered with point of view characters; Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Barnell Bohusk the list goes on… almost anyone who was a later recruit was the audience point of view as they had to have everything about the Xavier institute explained to them. The first X-men movie almost did this with Rogue, but seemed to after act one get cold feet or Bryan Singer wanted to focus more on Wolverine and Cyclops being petty little children arguing over Jean.
Have Jean be already dead.
Yes longtime readers will be familiar with my feelings towards Jean Grey, but if you’re not here the cliff notes. The most interesting thing Jean Grey ever did was die and the worst thing she did was come back.
But with Jean’s death came character development, theres tension in the air for our new recruit, something is bumming out the team and nobody will say what it is, why do Scott and Logan hate each other. The X-men are in splinters racked with guilt and need to learn to trust each other again and that’s your character arc for the team, how do you move on from loss and thats very MCU.
Use more than one villain.
The best way to open this movie is with action, yep I said it, it worked for Indiana Jones it’ll work here. It also worked in the MCU for Winter Soldier.
The only problem is who do you use to open the movie? Well I have a couple of thoughts, first Arcade, a lesser known X-men villain who is basically Jigsaw from the Saw Franchise minus the Edge-lord philosophy bullshit and just murders people with Killer clowns because he can. Arcade lacks depths but his visual style is far removed from the “Realistic look” of the previous X-men movies and more in line with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
Second thought is Krakoa, a mutated land mass that is responsible for the formation of the second X-men line up, and this would be a good in joke and would also show a major change from the previous as mutated land masses were too out there for Singer (who didn’t even like characters flying).
As for your main Villain… I actually have no idea somebody whose a threat to the X-men (so not Apocalypse as he’s just full of hot air)
Embrace the weird.
Seriously the X-men where originally labelled as The Strangest Heroes, don’t take that away from them now the Guardians of the Galaxy are mainstream with their talking cyborg Racoon.
