Drew Goddard has helped bring some of nerd culture's most beloved icons to life. He served as writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and Cloverfield, was screenwriter for The Martian, directed Cabin in the Woods, and was showrunner for Netflix's Daredevil season 1 (you know, before it became Daredevil: Too Many Ninjas). And now, according to The Hollywood Reporter (opens in new tab), he'll be writing and directing the upcoming X-Force movie.
What is X-Force? Well, as you might guess from the first letter, it is indeed a spin-off set in the X-Men universe. Specifically, the X-Force is akin to a black ops group that's a bit more murder-prone than those do-good X-Men. If Charles Xavier's students were the Army, the X-Force would be the CIA. In the comics, they've been broken up and reformed multiple times, with a rotating selection of members, but generally it's known as a group of not-very-happy people who aren't afraid to get their hands bloody.
The film will springboard off of the upcoming Deadpool 2 (opens in new tab), as Deadpool, Domino, and Cable are expected to act as the anchors of the team. According to a report from May (opens in new tab), the other members of the team will be introduced via the now-standard post-credits sequence and will include Feral, a sort of were-cat; Shatterstar, a nimble warrior with hollow bones; and Sunspot, a solar energy manipulator.
Hopefully we don't get burnout with all the X-Men projects in development. Along with this film, there's X-Men: Dark Phoenix and New Mutants movies on the way, plus The Gifted and Legion season 2 on television. Still, Goddard's involvement is exciting and given his pedigree, I'm hopeful he'll do X-Force justice.
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