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(SeaPRwire) –   Marvel has spent the last several years gearing up for its next major crossover event in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, which could mark the end of the cinematic universe as we currently know it. If this truly is the end, it can’t arrive soon enough — if only because of what lies on the other side.

Secret Wars could shake up the MCU, but it will also signal a major shift away from the Avengers and toward the X-Men. This team-up movie will even bring back the original X-Men lineup, giving the cast (and fans who love them) one more heartfelt send-off. I’ll never turn down a victory tour for actors like Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Romijn, and James Marsden, even though it’s clearly a bit saccharine. But after all this nostalgia, the MCU is teasing an all-new chapter: per Marvel chief Kevin Feige, mutantkind will inherit what remains of Earth once Secret Wars wraps up. Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier is signed on to direct Marvel Studios’ first official X-Men film, casting a brand-new ensemble to replace the original cast.

When Schreier was first brought on board, he couldn’t share many details about the project, but he’s since shared a highly promising update. Not only has the new X-Men film added two exceptional new screenwriters, but it could very well be the first of multiple X-Men movies.

During an interview with Collider ahead of the new season of Beef, Schreier discussed some of the themes he hopes to include in the X-Men reboot. “When you revisit the X-Men comics, you’ll find both ideological themes and interpersonal drama that almost has a soap opera-style tone,” the director explained. “Hiring writers who know how to tie ideological conflicts to personal stakes — if we nail that, that’s what will feel the truest to what the X-Men series can be.”

Fortunately, Marvel has brought on the creators behind “some of the most compelling TV shows right now” — Beef showrunner Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo — to rewrite the X-Men film’s script. This marks a reunion for the three creatives, since both Lee and Calo contributed to the script for Thunderbolts, as well as Beef Season 2.

“We’re still in the development phase,” Schreier noted. “They’ve joined the team and are currently working on a script draft, and it’s really thrilling to be able to reunite this group of creatives once more.”

Schreier states that the team’s goal is to balance a satisfying, self-contained story with the needs of the broader MCU. “We need to craft one excellent standalone film, but we’re also keeping future possibilities in mind as we brainstorm,” he added. “What different directions could this franchise take? Which story beats have been used in the comics already, which haven’t been explored deeply, and how can we weave those in? … We’ve been having those conversations, so those ideas are already on the table.”

This doesn’t officially confirm that X-Men will get a trilogy like the previous film series, but Schreier and his team appear to be working diligently to build a sturdy foundation for Marvel’s new mutant lineup to build future stories on. Given the path that 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise ended up taking, this forward-thinking approach is exactly what’s needed. Every X-Men trilogy got off to a strong start, but each was ultimately let down by disappointing final installments. The Last Stand wrapped the original trilogy in a messy, unsatisfying way, and while Fox rebounded with a strong prequel series, Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix gradually pushed the saga back to where it started. Even though the X-Men films are beloved by many, their legacy is tarnished by their inability to stick the landing consistently.

Learning from past missteps to avoid repeating them is in the MCU’s best interest, but with such an exceptional creative team on board, Marvel Studios just might succeed in breaking the X-Men curse.

Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled to premiere in theaters on December 17, 2027.