‘The Martian’s Drew Goddard is moving to 20th Century Fox’s mutant-verse to pen and direct ‘X-Force’ the long-in-development film based on a more proactive, paramilitary team than the more benevolent X-Men. He is now preparing to direct another film for Fox, ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’, a 1960s era action drama starring Chris Hemsworth, but he is reportedly already preparing the script for ‘X-Force’ and will go into production as soon as ‘El Royale’ is wrapped.
Photo credit: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.comGoddard serves as executive producer for ‘Daredevil’ and ‘The Defenders’ on Netflix, although those are produced through Marvel Entertainment/Television. He was attached to write and direct ‘Sinister Six’ for Sony (in fact he dropped out of directing ‘The Martian’ which he wrote, in order to take on ‘S6’), until Sony scrapped plans for that film after they decided to reboot their ‘Spider-Man’ franchise.
‘Daredevil’ and the other Netflix shows are decidedly grittier than the Marvel movies and ‘Sinister Six’ would have showcased a team of outright villains, so ‘X-Force’, which is darker and more violent than the traditional X-books should be a perfect fit for his sensibilities.
‘X-Force’ will be produced by Simon Kinberg, Ryan Reynolds, and Lauren Shuler Donner. Yes, Ryan Reynolds, meaning that Deadpool will be a focal character in the team film along with Josh Brolin’s Cable and Zazie Beetz’ Domino. Cable and Domino will premiere in ‘Deadpool 2’ which wrapped filming on June 1st to be released on June 1st, 2018. It joins a full roster of X-flicks from Fox next year, including ‘X-Men: New Mutants’ directed by Josh Boone, to be released on April 13th and ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ on November 2nd.
Speaking of ‘New Mutants’, that film features Cannonball (played by ‘Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton). The previously planned ‘X-Force’ film would have included this character, who was a central player in the comics, but presumably, that won’t be the case now. The inclusion of Deadpool would indicate that the movie will draw from more recent comics, meaning that it’s possible that Olivia Munn’s Psylocke could be included as well as Ben Hardy’s Archangel. Yes, he appeared to die in a plane explosion in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’, but in the comics, Warren Worthington also appeared to perish in the same way only to return later. (It was rumored that Feral, Shatterstar and Sunspot would pop up in a ‘Deadpool 2’ post-credits scene, but that was refuted by writer Rhett Reese.)
Do you think Drew Goddard is a good choice to tackle ‘X-Force’? What lineup would you like to see used in the film?
Source: Deadline
