What we know about Marvel’s new X-Men movie

Mutants are among the MCU but when will they get their own film?

The logo for the 2000 X-Men movie
The logo for the 2000 X-Men movie. (20th Century Fox)

After a long wait and a behind-the-scenes rights shuffle, Marvel’s X-Men movie is officially on the way, with various Mutants already starting to let their presence be known within the MCU.

The X-Men are one of Marvel’s biggest properties, with rich characters that have already garnered solid fanbases through their adventures on comic book pages, animated adventures and even feature films.

However, for the majority of their on-screen exploits, they’ve been under the watchful eye of 20th Century Fox and unable to fully interact with Kevin Feige’s ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Read more: Every upcoming MCU movie and TV show

All that changed in 2019 when Disney acquired Fox, giving the company free reign to play around with Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops and the rest of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

So what exactly do they have planned? Here’s what we know so far…

Hugh Jackman in his yellow Wolverine suit in Deadpool & Wolverine
Wolverine star Hugh Jackman made his MCU debut in Deadpool & Wolverine. (Marvel)

Marvel’s X-Men movie is currently without a confirmed release date and with the project still in the early stages of production, not even Professor X himself could predict when it might arrive.

That said, promising developments regarding its creative team mean that work is being done on it. So perhaps we’ll get to see what they cook up sometime in 2026 or thereabouts.

It’s worth noting that Marvel has already blocked out most of their films for their upcoming Phase Six and a stand-alone X-Men movie isn’t part of it... yet.

While it’s possible that X-Men could be added in at a later date, it’s equally likely that Phase Six’s multiverse-focused themes could be setting the scene for a Mutant-heavy Phase Seven.

Despite these uncertainties, a report published in Production Weekly — as reported by movie site World of Reel — seems to suggest that Marvel could be eying a shoot date of late 2025. This, in turn, could mean we’ll see a stand-alone X-Men film hit cinemas at some point in 2027.

No, there’s no trailer for Marvel’s X-Men movie just yet. Until a script is finished and cameras start to roll, we won’t get to see any snikty-snikty snippets of the MCU’s new Wolverine in action.

Michael Lesslie attends The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes premiere
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes writer Michael Lesslie will write the new X-Men movie. (Getty Images)

The plot for Marvel’s X-Men movie remains a mystery for now but according to many different reports, the studio’s new film will mark the start of a complete mutant makeover.

The search for a writer to helm the project began in late 2023 after the Hollywood strikes ended, with Marvel reportedly meeting with various different screenwriters for the job. Ultimately, it was Michael Lesslie, writer of The Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, who bagged the coveted job.

Much like the sprawling X-Men universe, that film also dealt with an ensemble cast, making Lesslie expertly placed to handle an entire school of colourful new characters.

Evan Peters as Quicksilver in WandaVision
Evan Peters made a cameo as Quicksilver in WandaVision. (Marvel)

As it stands, the project is yet to find a director or any stars, which means it’s still a long way from seeing the light of day.

It’s also unclear how the film will fit into the MCU’s wider dealings with mutants. In recent years, we’ve seen various X-Men characters pop up in Marvel movies and TV shows — from Evan Peters’ fan-favourite speedster Quicksilver appearing in WandaVision and Kelsey Grammer’s Beast turning heads in The Marvels’ end-credits sequence, to the return of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in Ryan ReynoldsDeadpool and Wolverine alongside a whole bunch of Mutant cameos (no spoilers here).

In fact, during promotion for Deadpool & Wolverine, Feige labelled the movie “the beginning of” the mutant era within the wider MCU.

“Now that we have the characters from the X-Men world and the mutants, that we haven’t had access [to] before, I think this is the beginning of that, and everything post-Deadpool & Wolverine will be the mutant era coming into the MCU,” explained Feige.

Elsewhere, Patrick Stewart’s iconic Professor Charles Xavier had a memorable cameo in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, while the hit animated series X-Men ’97 featured many popular X-Men returning in a stand-alone timeline.

Maybe we’ll see some returning faces but maybe not. As perhaps Marvel’s most popular intellectual property, odds are Feige will want to use this movie to introduce us to characters that can helm films and spin-offs for years to come, a task that’ll no doubt be best suited to new talent.


Marvel’s X-Men movie is coming soon.