‘X-Men’ Movie At Marvel Studios Gains Momentum As Michael Lesslie As Writer

EXCLUSIVE: Following the success of its animated series X-Men 97, Marvel Studios is now ramping things up on its live-action X-Men movie as Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes scribe Michael Lesslie has been set to pen the movie. The film is still in early development with no talent or director attached and no release date set. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige will produce.

As Deadline reported last fall, this project became one of the first major writing assignments to open up once the Writers Strike had been resolved. Feige and his execs made it clear there was no rush and took their time meeting with numerous candidates since then and Lesslie was mentioned in the InSneider Newsletter as a finalist. Late last week, the decision was made to go with Lesslie. Even with Leslie officially boarding it still will be some time before we get a movie in theaters as the film will now look to find a director to oversee the development with Feige and Leslie.

All that said, the news that Marvel has started development on the live-action pic is sure to excite fans of the franchise who have been begging for a new movie since Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox and its library in 2019. The X-Men universe was by far the most popular and profitable Marvel IP that Fox controlled with seven films and a successful Wolverine spinoff franchise that produced three more. After the disappointing release of Dark Phoenix in 2019, however, X-Men has been in need of a makeover.

This news also comes following the massive success of Marvel’s animated series X-Men 97, which not only was a big ratings hit on Disney+ but also earned some of the best reviews for any Marvel property in years. Following the series recent season finale that earned glowing reviews, it is clear the property is still highly valuable to the studio now there are multiple X-Men related projects for fans to get excited about.

As for Lesslie, the veteran scribe is now turning into the industries go to scribe as of late to when a franchise is in need of a pick me up. This past fall he helped Lionsgate relaunch the Hunger Games franchise with Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Next up is the long-awatied sequel in the Now You See Me franchise, which he also penned.

He is repped by Grandview.