According to a new report from Le Journal de Montréal (via Screen Rant), the next X-Men movie will begin shooting sooner than expected.
In a statement to the French-language news outlet, president of MELS Studios, Michel Trudel, confirmed that 20th Century Fox has set up production offices at the Montreal studio and will begin constructing sets in January for a new X-Men movie.
Trudel’s official comments read: “They will start shooting in May and they will occupy Studios 2 and 3 of MELS for several months. We had two and a half months of negotiations with the people at Fox… We are very pleased that they have agreed to return to Montreal. They enjoyed their two previous shooting experiences with us and they were very satisfied with our facilities and talent of the Quebec film industry.”
Shortly after the news hit, Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), who Fox hired in 2015 to co-write and direct New Mutants, a film based on the comic books of the same name, tweeted out a link to Den of Geek’s coverage of the story and said, “New X-Men film set to start shooting May… Hmmmm, what movie could it be?” See the tweet here…
https://twitter.com/JoshBooneMovies/status/806644075558359040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Boone’s input on the situation seems to indicate that the project being shot in May is going to be New Mutants. Although Fox has yet to confirm this information, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if they did so soon, perhaps along with a couple casting announcements as well.
As of now, no actors are attached to the project, but Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), Nat Wolff (Paper Towns) and Alexandra Shipp (who would be reprising her role as Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse) have all been rumoured for quite some time. X-Men franchise veterans Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg are set to produce; The Fault in Our Stars duo Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber will help out Boone with scripting duties.
New Mutants, while still taking place in the same (rather confusing) continuity of the previous X-Men films, will look to breathe fresh air into and be a soft reboot of the long-running franchise, which saw massive success this year with Deadpool and only moderate success with X-Men: Apocalypse.
Originally published December 8, 2016. Updated November 30, 2022.
