Marvel's X-Men Director Jake Schreier Shares More Details About His Approach: "How To Drive Ideology From Personal Stakes"

Jake Schreier, who directed Marvel’s Thunderbolts and is currently working on the studio’s X-Men film, shared more details about his approach to the project.

Speaking to Collider, Schreier first shared that the company has brought on two writers, Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo, to work on a draft of the film.

He said, “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. 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.”

From there, he highlighted why he’s especially excited about Sonny given he has “the ability to take small interpersonal dynamics and explode them into a much larger canvas.”

Next, he pointed to how they plan to approach them at-large, “When you go back and read X-Men [comics], there's ideology but also interpersonal drama, almost of a soap opera quality. Having writers who understand both how to drive ideology from personal stakes, if we get that right, that's what will feel most honest to what X-Men can be.”

Additionally, he shared that he’s not just mapping out a single movie, but multiple movies, “I think that, obviously, first things first: 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,” he added.

Schreier had previously shared with The Playlist, “The core idea of what ‘X-Men’ is involves complexity. It’s an incredible opportunity with super interesting characters and [much] internal conflict. These characters are wrestling with their identity and place in the world—that’s inherently interesting and complex material.”

He also made clear that the films will be different from other iterations and hinted that one of the big differences will be the film’s scale. First, he confirmed it will be different, “Yeah, I think that’s fair to say.”

Then he shared, “There’s that red sniper dot out there somewhere, you know…. But to be able to explore all of the ideas that are inherent to that rich source material, but also at the scale inherent to the source material, that’s like a very rare and fortunate opportunity. That’s very exciting.”

Additionally, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige told Nerdist, “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. Not—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, 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.”

As reported by Variety, Feige reiterated this in a press conference saying that Schreier is “going to make a youth-focused reboot. That may be reflected in mutant castings, and it’ll definitely be felt in the tone and perspective of the film.”

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