'Thunderbolts' director Jake Schreier eyed to helm new 'X-Men' movie

The X-Men are officially back on Marvel's radar—and they may be bringing a rising MCU star director along for the ride.
Jake Schreier
, who recently wowed critics with Marvel's
Thunderbolts
(stylized Thunderbolts), is reportedly in early talks to direct the studio's much-anticipated
X-Men reboot
. While no deal has been inked yet, insiders reveal Schreier has vaulted to the top of Marvel and Disney's wishlist after Thunderbolts defied expectations to become one of the most critically praised Marvel films in recent years.
Though Thunderbolts opened with a modest $76 million domestically, its strong word-of-mouth and critical acclaim have given the film surprising legs at the box office—enough to convince Marvel that Schreier might just be the creative force their iconic mutant franchise needs.
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The screenplay for the upcoming X-Men project is being penned by Michael Lesslie, whose recent work includes The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Marvel head honcho
Kevin Feige
will produce the film, but all other details—including casting, plot, and a release date—remain tightly under wraps.
Before jumping into the MCU, Schreier helmed the 2012 indie sci-fi drama Robot & Frank, the 2015 coming-of-age romance Paper Towns, and has directed episodes of hit series like Netflix's Beef and the upcoming Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.
The untitled X-Men feature marks the first full-length mutant-led Marvel movie since Disney's 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox. It comes on the heels of 2024's billion-dollar juggernaut Deadpool & Wolverine, and the animated hit X-Men '97, which brought nostalgic praise to Marvel's streaming slate.
Disney CEO Bob Iger recently name-checked Thunderbolts as a return to form for the MCU after a rocky run of underperformers. 'We lost a little focus by making too much,' Iger said during a recent investor call. 'Thunderbolts is a strong example of the new direction—less quantity, more quality.'
If Schreier does board the X-jet, fans may finally get the fresh, focused X-Men saga they've been waiting for.

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Time of India

8 hours ago

• Time of India

US strikes Iran: How Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick eerily predicted Donald Trump's Operation Midnight Hammer

When Top Gun: Maverick stormed theatres in 2022, it wasn't just a sequel—it was a resurrection. It defied every law of modern franchise gravity. No multiverse. No Marvel. No brooding they-them anti-hero. Just the return of a square-jawed cis-American icon doing exactly what he did 36 years ago—only faster, louder, and with a bigger sonic boom, looking like the folks at Scientology had finally found the Fountain of Youth. What made it work? First, it respected the original. No irony. No winks. No smug Gen Z subtext. Tom Cruise didn't hand over the keys—he repossessed the plane, flew it through a canyon at Mach 1.6, and landed it on an aircraft carrier with his grin cryogenically preserved in confidence. Kenny Loggins was still on standby. The soundtrack still slapped. The opening still had that slow-mo montage of jets and muscle, set to a synth-and-snare build-up so patriotic it practically handed you a Coors Light and called you "sir. " There was shirtless beach football. Beer without guilt. Bros being bros in the golden light of American masculinity. Maverick didn't just bring back a movie—it brought back a memory. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Eat 1 Teaspoon Every Night, See What Happens A Week Later [Video] getfittoday Undo Of the good old days, before drone warfare, before greyzone psyops, before movies needed three disclaimers and a trigger warning. A time when war was sexy, the rules were simple, and the only labels that mattered were 'friendly' and 'bogey on your six.' Second, it was real. Practical stunts. Real G-forces. No Marvel mush or green-screen gibberish. You felt every dive, every roll, every breath in a cockpit that looked more like a coffin. In an age of CGI fatigue, Maverick reminded viewers what cinema used to feel like—sweaty palms and pounding heartbeats, set to the scream of a jet engine. But above all, Top Gun: Maverick gave audiences something even rarer: sincerity. It wasn't cynical. It wasn't ashamed of heroism. It put on aviators, turned up the volume, and said: "Let's go." Top Gun Maverick Beach Scene 4K IMAX And go it did—straight into the heart of America's foreign policy theatre. Because what looked like a nostalgia-fuelled testosterone trip in 2022 now feels like something far more uncanny in 2025. As President Donald Trump orders a massive stealth strike on Iran's Fordow nuclear facility, Maverick doesn't look like a movie anymore. It looks like a propehcy. A daring pre-emptive strike. An underground uranium plant. A ticking clock. A threat not to America, but to unnamed "allies in the region." What once felt like high-octane fantasy is now playing out, almost scene for scene, in the skies above the Middle East. And Tom Cruise? He wasn't just making a sequel. He was filming the trailer for Trump's next war. The Anti-Woke Hit That Soared When Maverick dropped, it didn't just break box-office records—it broke Hollywood's progressive chokehold on patriotism. No identity politics. No postmodern angst. No war guilt disguised as character development. Just raw American adrenaline, jet-fuelled storytelling, and Tom Cruise doing what Tom Cruise does best—defying gravity and cultural trends alike. Even Jon Hamm showed up, having shed the whiskey-soaked aura of Don Draper to play a tight-laced, by-the-book commander who looked like he personally banned pronouns from the base. You could almost smell the Aqua Velva. The cast was tailor-made for culture-war glory. Miles Teller stepped in as Rooster—Goose's mustachioed legacy—looking like he belonged on a recruitment poster for bros who bench for liberty. Monica Barbaro played Phoenix, the token female pilot who neither lectured nor got lectured—just flew like hell and left feminism on mute. Glen Powell's Hangman was Iceman 2.0: arrogant, tanned, and ready to drop a snide remark along with his payload. Jennifer Connelly was there too, ageless and cool, running a bar where no one talks politics. No lectures. No apologies. Just call signs, dogfights, and sweat-drenched montages scored to the sound of American confidence. Reagan Redux: Top Gun Was Always Propaganda Top Gun (1986) Official Trailer - Tom Cruise Movie The 1986 Top Gun wasn't just a movie—it was Cold War propaganda with better hair. The Pentagon handed over carriers, jets, and script suggestions. Hollywood returned the favour by air-dropping a generation of recruits into Navy flight school. It was recruitment wrapped in romance and set to guitar riffs. Maverick followed the same flight path. The military offered full support. The Navy looked like gods. But this time, there was a twist: the enemy was unnamed. No Soviet MiGs. No al-Qaeda. Just a faceless rogue nation with a uranium facility in the mountains. The target? An underground enrichment site. The mission? Destroy it before it becomes operational. The threat? Not to America—but to our unnamed "allies in the region." Nobody said Iran. Nobody said Israel. And yet everybody knew. That narrative sleight of hand—so brazen in its vagueness—would soon feel less like creative license and more like strategic foreshadowing. Scene for Scene: Trump's Iran Strike Mirrors the Film In June 2025, President Trump—new term, same instincts—ordered a real-world operation that bore eerie resemblance to Maverick. Seven B-2 bombers took off from the US under the cloak of midnight. The mission: Operation Midnight Hammer. The target: Iran's Fordow uranium enrichment facility, buried in the mountains near Qom. A site designed to withstand everything short of Armageddon. A site built for this very moment. In Maverick, the enemy is never named, but the target is clear: a uranium plant in a GPS-jammed valley, surrounded by surface-to-air missiles and fifth-gen fighters. In real life, Fordow sits in a mountainous fortress, shielded by SAM batteries, jamming tech, and hardened bunkers. In the film: three weeks become ten days become go-time. In reality: intel warned that Iran's enrichment programme was just days from a critical threshold. And in both cases, the justification was identical: not America-first, but ally-defence. In Maverick, it's the vague protection of "our friends in the region." In 2025, Trump didn't even bother with euphemism—Israel was the subtext and subtext became text. It wasn't a shot-for-shot remake. But it was close enough to make even Cruise raise an eyebrow behind his aviators. Whose War Is It Anyway? What made Maverick eerie in hindsight was how little it bothered to justify the mission. No American hostages. No nukes pointed at New York. Just an unspoken understanding that someone else's red line was worth flying into. And that's what the Right is now debating. Why should American pilots risk their lives for foreign bunkers? Why should billion-dollar aircraft be dispatched to send messages on behalf of another democracy? Maverick doesn't ask "why." It only asks: "Can it be done?" That question, in 2025, is no longer rhetorical. The Real Finale: A Flag, a Flyby… and a Fade to Black Maverick ends like every great American military fantasy: mission accomplished, uranium plant obliterated, and Tom Cruise strutting across the tarmac with his abs and aircraft intact. The jets land. The music swells. The flag flutters in cinematic slow motion. It could have been lifted straight from the closing scene of Operation Midnight Hammer. But imagine for a second that Maverick didn't make it. 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Only last month in Saudi Arabia, Trump, trying to draw a red line between himself and Dubya, declared: 'In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. ' As David Remnick pointed out in a recent piece in New Yorker , Trump once echoed Bannon and Tucker Carlson when he said: 'In recent years, far too many American Presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins.' Top Gun: Maverick (2022) Dagger Attack Scene And yet, here we are—seven stealth bombers later. A highly classified mission. A decoy formation. A multi-theatre deployment. A strike not to defend American cities, but to send a message on behalf of regional allies. It may have looked like surgical precision from the skies—but on the ground, it's a policy contradiction wrapped in cinematic déjà vu. 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Mint

8 hours ago

• Mint

Ashley Tisdale on what makes her High School Musical character iconic

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Hindustan Times

15 hours ago

• Hindustan Times

Spider-Man vs. antihero Punisher? Marvel's newest crossover might be its most intense yet; everything to know

No matter how much superhero fatigue is out there, Spider-Man always seems to swing above the noise. Tom Holland's take on the web-slinger remains a fan favourite, and now with Spider-Man: Brand New Day officially on the horizon, Marvel and Sony have dropped a major update. There's a new villain in town, and he's a familiar face. Spider-Man and the Punisher Enter: Jon Bernthal. Best known for playing Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, Bernthal has officially joined the upcoming Spider-Man movie, which begins shooting in England this summer and is set to release on July 31, 2026. Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) is directing, and the film will see the return of Zendaya as MJ as well as Jacob Batalon as Ned. Also joining the mix is Stranger Things breakout Sadie Sink. Having Bernthal's Punisher in the mix immediately hints at a grittier tone for the film. Known for his brutal, no-nonsense vigilante justice — fists, knives, and guns over gadgets and spells — the Punisher brings a raw intensity that could challenge Peter Parker in ways we haven't seen on screen before. As one fan said on X, 'There is so much they could do with this! Love to see a fight with Frank combating Peter's superhuman abilities with his tactical knowledge and planning.' Bernthal's Frank Castle first appeared in Netflix's Daredevil before headlining his own two-season series. He recently reprised the role in Daredevil: Born Again, and this new casting puts him squarely back in the MCU spotlight. The internet, of course, has lost it. 'I literally screamed. Best news I've heard in a while,' one fan wrote. Another added, 'Can't believe we're finally going to see the Punisher on screen alongside Spider-Man. It's been a long time coming.' So far, Brand New Day is shaping up to be anything but business as usual. The two stars will also be seen together in Christopher Nolan's upcoming movie adaptation of The Odyssey, which is due to release in July, 2026.