While Marvel is looking to break the bank with The Avengers this summer, capitalizing on a perfectly orchestrated campaign years in the making, many of their other licensed superhero properties have thrived at other studios. First and foremost among these is the X-men franchise, currently over at 20th Century Fox. With X-men: First Class proving to be a big enough hit to warrant an upcoming sequel, and Hugh Jackman's The Wolverine on the way, the mutant corner of the genre is represented in a way it hasn't seen since Bryan Singer's X-Men 2. And now the franchise might be getting a little bit bigger.
Collider had a chance to speak with Fox CEO Tom Rothman down at CinemaCon, and he hinted at the possibility of a film based on the New Mutants comic book series. Well, he kinda did. The New Mutants were asked about along with any other potential Marvel-related announcements. Collider seems to take this as some sort of definite, but I think the exchange is more ambiguous than that....
Collider: I know you guys have New Mutants and a lot of characters in the X-Men universe. Obviously you guys are moving forward on an X-Men sequel, you’re moving forward on Wolverine, do you envision New Mutants or some of these other characters as franchises that the door can be open to? It does seem to me that the superhero genre is bigger than it’s ever been, and you guys have some of the crown jewels.
Rothman: (smiles) Yes.
Collider: When can fans expect an announcement on some of these other properties? Before Comic-Con, after Comic-Con, at Comic-Con?
Rothman: In the summer.
Collider: Are you talking to filmmakers right now?
Rothman: Let me just say this. All I have to say is, I agree with you in your assessment of the potential in a lot of these characters.
So he doesn't really say there's a New Mutants movie on the way, although Collider insists he "all but confirmed" it afterwards. That's some sketchy sh*t right there, but I'll bite. Let's assume New Mutants is on the way. For those who don't know, the New Mutants was a young team of mutants that first debuted in 1982 before getting their own series the following year. They were basically students, trained by both Magneto and Charles Xavier at different points, and a lot of their stories dealt with the effects of the two divergent ideologies on the youngest generation of mutants. Eventually, as the students grew up, they rejected both Xavier and Magneto and struck out on their own, forming the militaristic unit known as X-Force. I've been begging for an X-force movie for years. Times like this I really wish Marvel had kept all of their characters in-house, because the strongest connection the New Mutants have outside of the X-men is with Asgard, where they've fought alongside Thor and his family on numerous occasions. Could have made for one Hell of a crossover movie.
Anyway, when you break it down, the New Mutants doesn't sound all that different from X-men: First Class, does it? Does Fox really want to make the same movie, showing the same teenaged struggles? Probably not. That means if it's going to happen, there would have to be some serious changes. Maybe the X-men: First Class sequel could lead to some sort of split, with Magneto going off to form his own team of young charges? Or are we(please please please!) be looking at something closer to X-Force? Don't forget, Marvel is also planning a film based on the Runaways series of teen heroes, so the market could be saturated with similar looking stuff.
I'm not convinced Fox is doing anything with the New Mutants right now, but we'll find out this summer likely around Comic-Con.
