X4

After the amazing X2: X-Men United, I began work on my own personal draft for the next installment (its working title being X3: Uncanny X-Men). It opened up with Gambit breaking into the X-Mansion, Storm going a bit off the deep end (a la Punk Storm of 1984), Cyclops taking comfort in the arms of Dazzler, Sentinels and the Hellfire Club. I got thirty pages done and I enjoyed it.

Then Brett Ratner made the real X3. And I vomited in my mouth a little. The deep themes that I tried to shoehorn into my script (power and what it does to those who come into it) were not present in this movie. I mean, I can't go into my problems with X-Men: The Last Stand. That'd be a sad blog.

After that disappointment, I decided to try something harder than writing a sequel to the great X2. I decided to try and write a sequel to the horrible X-Men: The Last Stand. Without Wolverine or Storm. My cast is pictured up and to the left.

And I must acknowledge that I know this is lame since there is zero chance of this being made. In fact, this is fan fiction. Total fanfic. A form that is mocked and treated like the plague by me and all I know. But whatev. I love the X-Men and I love to write so...why not?

I started this last May and then took a break. After watching Barton Fink I was inspired to write and, instead of working on my sitcom, my original screenplay that's 2/3rds done, or a new original one, I decided to return to this. I've added another 13 pages to the initial 14 and I think it's shaping up.

The script as of page 27 includes:
-The Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk)
-Rogue getting Ms. Marvel's powers permanently
-A roster of Iceman, Beast, Kitty Pryde and Colossus
-The Morlocks
-Students (Jubilee, Siryn, Cannonball and Sunspot) vs. a Morlock in a bowling alley
-Iron Man vs. Caliban
-Skids (the character)
-Gambit saying "au revoir"
-Sunder slapping Angel's dad

I'm heavily drawing off the first Morlock story of Uncanny X-Men #169 - #170 in an attempt to make the X-Men seem more New York. I love how the Spider-Man films play up the city and make it seem integral; the X-Mansion is in New York and I want one of these films to really feel like it. The first one almost did...except that it felt like Vancouver as New York.

At some point Rogue is going to return to the mansion and need a psychic to sort out her head. Enter Psylocke. English Psylocke. Also, Angel joins the team officially, Gambit and Rogue hang around and help, and Jubilee gets caught in the action. A decent roster.

The climax of the film will be the Mutant Massacre and will feature a pretty direct adaptation of Uncanny #213. Return of Sabretooth, people. I chose this because another driving force behind this script is my love of intense battle sequences (I cite LOTR: The Two Towers for this). There is no other battle in the x-canon as gruesome as the Massacre and it puts the team in a moral quandary: should they really protect the villains from the worse villains? So yeah, the Marauders are here as well.

Continuity nerds, I know that both Arclight and Callisto were killed in X-Men: The Last Stand and that'll be addressed. It's a plot point. Not that it matters at all.

This is what I did today. Who knows if I'll get any further, but dreaming up storylines is usually how I spend the boring parts of my day.