Penn to Pen New Mutant Movie

Screenwriter Zak Pen (Elektra, X2: X-Men United), who worked on X-Men: The Last Stand with Simon Kinberg, may not be done with mutant movies.

Beyond working with long-time X-Men writer Chris Claremont on X-Men: The Official Game, Penn is also working on either the Magneto or Wolverine stand-alone movies and maybe more.

"Actually, I am contracted to write and direct one of the spin-offs," he told Superhero Hype. "One of the things about Hollywood is that it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, but part of my deal was that I would get to direct one of the spin-offs. It's not going to be 'Wolverine' or the 'Magneto' one that they've announced. It's going to be one that I'm theoretically supposed to write. I just have to find the time to write it."

There's been Internet talk of a New Mutants movie, but Penn says he doesn't have too much say in which characters would be featured. "You never get a choice of anything, truthfully, because it's all about actor availabilities and about Marvel and everyone else," he said. "The goal in the spin-off that I would do would be to use some of the preexisting characters, depending on actor availability, but ideally, to introduce the characters from the comic book world that haven't gotten their fair shot on screen. That's what I would shoot for. Every movie involves 50 other people's decisions, other than the writers, so it's always a battle."

X3 comes out May 26 and the official videogame comes out May 16.