In case you haven’t heard, the X-Men are on their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After years of teasers peppered in shows like WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Patrick Stewart’s extended cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness—and let’s not forget The Marvels (or do)—the X-Men will have a big part in Avengers: Doomsday later this year. But that’s not the only thing Marvel is cooking up for mutants. There’s a whole new X-Men movie now in development.
But what, exactly, will Marvel do with the X-Men? With the original series’ cast set to reprise their parts in Doomsday, will Marvel’s grand plans for the X-Men see them pick up where they all left off so many year ago? Or is Marvel wiping the slate clean for a new class? Here’s everything we know about the MCU’s future plans for the X-Men.
In 2025, after the release of Thunderbolts*, Marvel announced director Jake Schreier as the shepherd overseeing the new X-Men movie. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Marvel Studios figurehead Kevin Feige confirmed his involvement. “We're very, very lucky to have him, and very excited to have him, and so we're beginning,” he said. “It's all starting. That script's underway.”
Feige said that Thunderbolts* impressed Marvel brass enough to give Jake the job, as his approach to the movie’s tone and characters was ideally suited to the material.
Said Feige: “Jake's an incredibly smart guy, and he's an incredibly talented filmmaker. We had a great experience with him on Thunderbolts*. And if you saw that movie, what he did with those character interactions, he also has his pulse on, shall we say, a younger demographic. He's younger than me, for sure, but he's tapped into that in a [way] that I think is important. It was important for Thunderbolts* … [it will be] much more important for X-Men, because X-Men, as it was in the comics, will be a very youth-oriented, focused, and cast movie.”
Feige’s quotes suggest that Marvel is rebooting the X-Men wholesale. This was always the implication, as both Avengers: Doomsday and its 2026 sequel Avengers: Secret Wars are poised to be massive event films that will give Marvel a chance to reset its busy franchise. But Feige’s statement basically confirms that in so few words.
To explain why, we need to look at the comics. (Brace yourself for some nerd trivia ahead.) In 2015, the Marvel comic series Secret Wars (itself a nod to an earlier series from 1984) ended with a grand reboot of Marvel’s comic book continuity.
After Secret Wars, the core Earth-616 universe—where most of Marvel’s storytelling have taken place since the publisher began making comics in the early 20th century—completely converged into the parallel “Ultimate Marvel” universe, which launched in the early 2000s as a more modernised take on Marvel’s stories and characters.
These comics are giving Marvel Studios a roadmap on how to start anew, with Avengers: Secret Wars in 2026 destined to be that big shakeup the film studio wants. (And frankly, needs.) This means new takes on its characters, including the X-Men, are in store.
Hence Feige’s phrasing that Schrierer’s X-Men will be “very youth-oriented”—which also means that the original cast led by Hugh Jackman and James Marsden will not stick around, and Doomsday will be that cast’s overdue send-off.
In April 2026, Jake Schrierer spoke to Collider to promote Beef season 2 and confirmed that Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear writer/co-showrunner Joanna Calo (both of whom contributed work on Thunderbolts*) are at work on X-Men.
"We're still developing. You know, one of the exciting things that's tying into Beef is that Sonny [Lee Sung Jin] and Joanna [Calo] both worked on this season,” Schrierer said. “Obviously, I mean, Beef is Sonny's show, and Joanna worked on the season as well, and we worked together on season 1 of Beef and on Thunderbolts*. They have come in and are working on a draft right now, which is really exciting to be able to put that group of people together again."
Schrierer also hinted that there could be multiple X-Men movies ahead, but the focus right now is on their first outing.
He said: “We have to make one great movie. But we always have an eye as we’re talking about it too. What are the different places this can go? What are the places that [have] been in the comics? What hasn’t been explored as much, and how can that be incorporated? And what are some of the different avenues that we could take that feel like the kind of less-trodden path that we could go down? But those ideas are always out there, as we have the discussions.”
Will the X-Men be the injection of new blood the tired Marvel franchise has needed all along? Or has the world grown too weary for heroes anymore? It’ll be a long time before we know anything more about the X-Men. But it won’t be long before we see them again.
