While Marvel Studios is currently dominating in the superhero genre, the X-Men movies looks like they’re about to break out in a big way. While the main X-Men franchise may have stagnated a bit, the spinoffs are redefining the superhero genre in a big way. Deadpool was a massive hit that proved an R-rated superhero movie could be a hit, and Logan is outstanding.

Steve Weintraub recently spoke with producer Simon Kinberg for Logan and learned about what’s coming up when it comes to Deadpool 2 and New Mutants:

SIMON KINBERG: We’re gearing up to make both of them this year. New Mutants we’re waiting on a new draft of the script, which we’re all very excited about. Josh Boone has been prepping that movie. Josh is someone who is a lifelong, hardcore fan of New Mutants, and the plan is to make that movie late spring, early summer of this year, and have it come out next year.

 

Similarly with Deadpool 2, Ryan and the guys have been working hard on the script. We have a really good script for that movie, and we’re into the casting process right now for some of the new characters. There aren’t a lot of new characters, but there are some big ones, as I’m sure you can imagine. And the plan would be to shoot that movie this year as well and have it come out next year. So potentially next year you will have a surfeit of X-Men and X-Men-related movies in theaters.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

As far as if the studio is looking at long-term plans with the X-Men franchise or if they’re just going one film at a time, Kinberg replied:

KINBERG: There’s a long-term plan. There’s a long-term plan for what to do with each of these movies, and how these movies could potentially interact or come together in the future. And yet, within each of these films, there’s the freedom for the filmmaker to make whatever movie they want to make. So we don’t want to hamstring—it’s not an episode of a television show. We want to give filmmakers the opportunity to be creative and bold and provocative the way Jim Mangold was with Logan; the way Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds were with Deadpool. We’ve seen that pay off creatively and commercially with Deadpool and hopefully with Logan, so we want to keep it within the larger timeline and larger sort of architecture, but give people an opportunity to play.

You can take the “it’s not an episode of a television show” as a subtle dig at what Marvel Studios is doing, but the fact of the matter is that 20th Century Fox is doing some really interesting things with their superhero movies. They’re taking risks that are paying off, and hopefully things will come together soon for Deadpool 2 and New Mutants.

Click here for what Kinberg had to say about plans for a Fantastic Four sequel.

Logan opens March 3rd.

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Image via Marvel Comics
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Image via Marvel Comics