Add a Kitty Pryde solo film to the growing list of upcoming X-Men movies.
It appears that the folks at 21st Century Fox are determined to make it difficult for the Walt Disney Company and Marvel Studios to reboot the X-Men franchise. When the Disney-Fox merger was announced, we expected all of Fox's Marvel Comics-based projects to be immediately scrapped – excluding the three already scheduled for release in 2018. But it’s going to take 12 to 18 months just to finalize the regulatory process for the deal, so Disney won’t have full control for some time.
Fox obviously doesn't intend to hit the brakes on their poorly configured X-Men cinematic universe during that transition period. In the wake of the merger, the studio is still moving forward with Gore Verbinski's Gambit, Drew Goddard's X-Force and Noah Hawley's Doctor Doom.
Collider recently reported that another project is in the works. Deadpool director Tim Miller is developing a standalone movie for Kitty Pryde. Created in the early 1980s by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the mutant is able to "phase", which means that she and anything she touches can pass through solid matter.
Ellen Page appeared as Pryde in X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past. At the moment, it’s not clear whether Page or another actress will take on the role in the upcoming movie.
The Collider report did mention that the Kitty Pryde movie hasn’t been officially confirmed, so it may not even happen. It’s likely that Disney would only hesitate to axe the project if Fox were able to get the cameras rolling before the merger is finalized. Miller is committed to direct the untitled Terminator movie, which is scheduled to begin filming in March and hit the theaters in the summer of 2019, so that’s going to be difficult to accomplish.
