‘Kick-Ass 2’director Jeff Wadlow has been toiling away on a film adaptation of ‘X-Force’ the 90s-originated, paramilitary branch of the ‘X-Men’ universe. News about the project has been minimal, but last year, following the release of ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ and the announcement of ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’, we reported that the project had been delayed although there was no detailed explanation.
Then, we JUST brought you this concept artwork depicting the movie version of ‘X-Force’– Cable, Domino, Warpath, Cannonball (flying in the background) and a hooded female figure that had a lot of fans stumped, but who I believe is a highly modified version of Feral, as she appears to have claws and hairy arms, plus a white streak in her red hair and whited-out eyes.
The natural assumption was that this artwork, by Gregory Semkow had been released because the project was moving closer to reality. Now, comes word that the truth is the exact opposite. The art was released because ‘X-Force’ is dead.
The illustration was released because it’s basically now discarded– a glimpse of what might have been.
The creator of the original ‘X-Force’ comic book, Rob Liefeld, who has been involved with the adaptation process tweeted this announcement, essentially confirming the collapse of the film:
I adore the work Jeff Wadlow did on it and at one point it was clearly on the agenda but priorities change and movies die.
— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) December 28, 2015
Liefeld had previously tweeted another message, which offered a bit of explanation:
Important note about the 2013 X-Force script. The Apocalypse film rendered it completely obsolete. Happens.
— robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) December 28, 2015
So it sounds like there were some story conflicts between the two movies and since ‘X-Men’ is the established flagship, it was given precedence.
At this point, it’s not clear how far along in development ‘X-Force’ was, but it sounds as if a script was either complete or pretty far along. Perhaps now that the project is dead, more details will emerge.
On a brighter note, perhaps only THIS version of the movie is dead. Fox still has the rights. Maybe they will simply go back to the drawing board and cook up a new approach to this harder-edged team.
Fox is, after all, attempting to build an entire shared universe with ‘Deadpool’ as the first spinoff. And should the Channing Tatum-starring ‘Gambit’ overcome its seemingly endless delays and complications, it will also help build this world, as will the in-development ‘New Mutants’ film. There were even plans to incorporate the ‘Fantastic Four’, but… uh well, we know how that went.
Would you still like to see an ‘X-Force’ film? Are you sorry that this one isn’t happening? Or would you be interested in another approach?
Source: Movie Pilot
