An Abandoned Solo ‘X-Men’ Movie About Beast Took Some Cues From John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’

From a terrible opening weekend at the box office and some last-minute reshoots needed the avoid some Captain Marvel connections, Dark Phoenix isn’t doing so well. Director Simon Kinberg recently took credit for the latest X-Men movie’s failures. “It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with audiences that didn’t see it, it didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it,” he said. “So that’s on me.” So, Dark Phoenix is wrapping up the Fox X-Men universe before Disney decides to reboot it.

However, as this X-Men Cinematic Universe comes to a close, we’re hearing more and more about what could have been. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Fox was developing its own Avengers-esque team-up with the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and other Marvel properties it owned the licenses to. Now, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, there’s a bit from longtime franchise editor and composer John Ottman, who had developed his own X-Men spinoff about the character Beast.

While wrapping up X-Men: Apocalypse, he and his assistant, Byron Burton, wrote and developed a Beast movie set in the ’80s that included Professor X, Wolverine and Mr. Sinister. The script, which anyone can read here, “begins in a snow-covered Inuit village that’s being stalked by a mysterious creature”:

“We wanted to have the tenor of John Carpenter’s The Thing where you are in this inhospitable environment,” says Ottman.

The script then cuts to Hank McCoy, who is living in the X-Mansion and is keeping his mutation in check with a special serum introduced in 2014’s Days of Future Past. During a Danger Room sequence, it becomes apparent Hank is having trouble controlling his beastly nature as he nearly loses control. Early in the first act, we also learn Hank has been helping a scientist who has a similar mutation.

However, things don’t go so well for the scientist, whose transformation begins terrorizing the aforementioned Inuit village, resulting in a showdown between the two beasts while Sinister looks on. “The idea was we would have Sinister as this multi-film villain orchestrating things,” Ottman explained to THR.

The script ultimately didn’t go anywhere and was left undeveloped, but just imagine it… an X-Men movie meant to channel the abject, beastly horrors of Carpenter’s The Thing and other similar genre classics.