The writer of Marvel’s X-Men movie just said the thing out loud: the X-Men are for everybody.
Lee Sung Jin — the Beef creator reuniting with his Beef director Jake Schreier, who helms the mutant reboot after Thunderbolts* — tells Deadline that he and co-writer Joanna Calo (The Bear) are starting from the one thing every version of the franchise that ever worked started from.
“We’re thinking about these characters and what makes them tick,” Lee said. “What parts of them feel universally relatable, and leading with that first before we start thinking about plots and world stakes and all that.”
Universally relatable. Leading with that first.
“No Better Set Of Characters”
Here’s the full set of quotes via Deadline:
“I grew up with X-Men and I think there’s no better set of characters that kind of exemplify feeling othered, feeling different from the world,” Lee said. “We want to continue mining from that theme and it couldn’t be more relevant today in 2026.”
“They want to go back to character first, which is the type of writing that me and Joanna do best,” he continued. “We’re thinking about these characters and what makes them tick. What parts of them feel universally relatable, and leading with that first before we start thinking about plots and world stakes and all that.”
“I think audiences are always hungry for character first,” Lee added. “That’s the thing that makes storytelling resonate, that you’re able to see and identify parts of yourself in these people on the big screen.”
Notice what “feeling othered” means in that framing. It’s not a demographic checkbox. It’s the most universal feeling there is, that every kid who ever ate lunch alone, every adult who ever walked into a room and felt like the odd one out.
That’s why the theme is “relevant today in 2026”: because it’s relevant to everybody, in any year.
John Byrne Just Said The Same Thing
If that sounds familiar, it’s because one of the men who built the franchise made the identical point days ago.
As we covered, John Byrne told The New York Times the X-Men were never designed as a civil rights allegory — “Xavier is F.D.R. and Magneto is Hitler” — and that the activist framing was retrofitted by fans, with Stan Lee happy to take the credit.
The real engine, per Byrne and the late Roger Stern: readers saw themselves in the X-Men, because the X-Men were outsiders.
Not a lecture aimed at a small segment of the audience. A mirror anyone can look into.
Now the guy writing the movie lands on the same page, nearly word for word: “you’re able to see and identify parts of yourself in these people on the big screen.”
Marvel Already Proved It Works
This isn’t theory. Marvel just ran the experiment on its own animated series.
X-Men ’97 Season 2 stripped out the Season 1 agenda messaging — the latest sign of Marvel’s retreat from its message-first era — and told a universal story instead.
The results: a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 10/10 three-episode premiere, and a 10/10 Apocalypse episode that plays like a gut punch instead of a lecture.
Critics themselves called it less preachy.
For everybody. Character first. Watch what happens.
And Lee’s “they want to go back to character first” line slots right next to Robert Downey Jr. selling Avengers: Doomsday as the antidote to everything since Endgame, which is its own admission.
Marvel knows what stopped working. The people building the next era keep saying so. And this fits with Disney’s new approach, according to our insiders.
With mutants positioned as the center of gravity heading into Avengers: Doomsday, Schreier’s movie is the flagship of the rebuild.
Schreier, who helms the reboot after Thunderbolts*, has been on the industry’s radar, with breakout star Inde Navarrette noting she already met X-Men director Jake Schreier.
The comics figured this out sixty years ago, X-Men ’97 just proved it again on screen, and now the movie’s own writer is saying it: the X-Men work when they’re for everybody.
For all the casting rumors, check out our X-Men reboot guide.
