Fox already announced that Hugh Jackman‘s character in their widely popular X-Men films, Wolverine, would be getting a spin-off and now they announce that the Ian McKellen played character, Magneto, will be getting the same treatment as they have just hired scribe, Sheldon Turner, to pen the script.
With David Benioff hard at work on the Wolverine script, Turner will make ready Magneto all while Simon Kinberg is working on the screenplay for X-Men 3.
The cool thing about all three films is that they will be working together to expand the X-Men universe and will not be taking extreme tangents from the original films’ storylines.
The original X-Men film began with a prologue that showed Magneto as a child being led to a concentration camp by Nazis, and that is the period in which the Magneto film will take place. This setup will allow a future villain to at least flirt with the designation of protagonist. Taking this into consideration it is not exactly clear of McKellen will play any role in the film at all since it will being taking place in Magneto’s early years.
On the other hand Patrick Stewart may be popping up as his character in the franchis, Professor X, the wheelchair-using X-Men leader, was a soldier in the allied force that liberated the concentration camps. The professor meets Magneto after the war, and while they bond over the realization that they are alike in their special powers, their differences soon turn them into enemies.
Magneto’s scribe, Sheldon Turner, is responsible for the upcoming Adam Sandler comedy, The Longest Yard, as well as MGM’s remake of The Amityville Horror. On top of that he also drafted an origin script of Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Leatherface, which he hope to hear a lot more about.
