Genre: Superhero
Premise: Both the X-Men and the evil “Brotherhood” fight one another in an attempt to lure Wolverine onto their side, while the Brotherhood’s leader, Magneto, plans a secret takeover of a major U.S. city, all amongst the country’s growing resistance towards mutants.
About: There’s been a lot of chatter over the last week about the “X-Men” writing job. Kevin Feige has said he’s ready to go. So every big screenwriting name in town is going to pitch for the job. In 1997, Andrew Kevin Walker, the writer of “Seven” (and the upcoming, “The Killer”) wrote an X-Men movie. We’ve got a reader here on the site who says it’s the best X-Men script ever written. Today we’re going to find out if that’s true.
Writer: Andrew Kevin Walker
Details: 152 pages
Not a lot of people know what I’m about to tell you but YA BOY used to love X-Men comics. In fact, they were the only comics I liked. I just loved that name: “X-Men.” So cool. And the fact that there were so many of these guys! It felt like every time you opened the comic, you would meet a new X-Man. Why buy Superman and hang out with one superhero when you could buy X-Men and hang out with a hundred of them?
This X-Men love probably would’ve continued well into adulthood. But in 7th grade, I discovered girls. After that I wasn’t too interested in comic books. Or anything that wasn’t girls for that matter. Still, I always had a soft spot for X-Men.
When X-Men finally made it to the big screen via Bryan Singer, it was a letdown. I thought the costume and make-up were second-rate. The production value had an almost “video” quality to it. The casting was hit or miss. The only good X-Men movie that came out of that franchise was X-Men: First Class. Otherwise, it was a waste of good IP.
That brings us to today. This tattered franchise is not only trying to reinvent itself. It’s trying to revive Marvel. Marvel is a Capital-J Joke right now. Every one of their movies gets worse and they’re about to experience an all-time low with The Marvels.
X-Men is the first time in a long time where they can introduce beloved known characters into the Marvel Universe. If they can pull this off, it could be Iron Man all over again – meaning a foundation you can build the entire next stage of the Marvel franchise on top of. And, unlike Iron Man, you’ve got tons of characters to work with instead of just one.
Now, I don’t know about you. But if I had a chance to grab the 1997 version of the screenwriter who wrote Seven to script my X-Men movie, I would take it. Well, guess what? Andrew Kevin Walker *did* write an X-Men script. Does this mean that Kevin Feige doesn’t even need to hire a writer anymore? Does he already have a great X-Men script in his possession? Let’s find out!
A war is a brewin’. It’s a 3-way war. Team One is the X-Men, the good mutants. Team Two is the Brotherhood, the bad mutants. And Team Three is the government. They want to tag every mutant by having them register via the Mutant Registration Act.
The Three-Way War is complicated by the fact that the X-Men and the Brotherhood need each other. They’re all mutants and the government wants to take them down. But with Magneto running the Brotherhood, Xavier knows that there’s no way they can work together. Magneto’s a bad dude. He’s even responsible for putting Xavier in that wheelchair he rolls around in!
Right now, the X-Men and Brotherhood are each trying to retain the services of the top mutant free agent, a guy you may have heard of. His name is Wolverine. Wolverine wants to be left alone but since Xavier seems so sweet, Wolverine joins Team X-Men, and quickly gets into a love triangle with Jean Grey and Cyclops.
But when no one else is around, Wolverine drops the tough guy act and struggles to remember how he became a lab rat and turned into a super killing machine. He eventually recruits Xavier and his psychic powers to go deeper into his memories. Xavier is shocked to find out, however, that not even he can penetrate Wolverine’s memories. There’s some sort of memory blocker inside of him – top level tech, which means someone REALLY DOESN’T WANT Wolverine finding out the truth.
When Xavier and friends least expect it, the government sends in giant “sentinel” robots to destroy his mansion. While this is happening, Magneto finally unleashes his secret plan. He uses the Brotherhood to flood all the tunnels in Manhattan and close all the bridges. He then goes on air and says Manhattan is now mutant land. All humans have to leave. It’ll be up to the X-Men to regroup from their attack and stop them.
The coolest thing that happens in this script is The Brotherhood taking over Manhattan. And you know what page that happens on? Page 110.
You could make the argument that that’s the perfect time to introduce the takeover since it’s the third act. But I would disagree with that. You need to have the takeover happen either at the first act turn or, ideally, the midpoint.
Cause it’s a way more interesting story once the bad guys take over the biggest city in the world. And they invite all these mutants in and it becomes a mutant stronghold. And now you have this fun story where the government, who previously hated the X-Men, has to come to them for help. Then the X-men go in there to save the day.
Instead, we get a Character Setup Fest. The very thing that I said was so cool about the X-Men — that there are so many of them — is what kills this screenplay. Normally, if you’re writing a superhero movie like Spiderman: Homecoming, you have to set up Peter Parker, you have to set up the Vulture. And you’re done! Now you can get to the fun stuff.
In X-Men, we have to set up The Blob, Beast, Sabertooth, Wolverine, Xavier, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Juggernaut, Angel, Iceman, Magneto, and Toad. Look up at that page count again. You see it? Read it back to me. 152 pages, right?
You’ve heard a million times you’re not allowed to write a script that long. So why is this 152 pages? BECAUSE THEY HAD TO SET UP SO MANY CHARACTERS. Think about it. All those characters I just listed. They each need a proper setup scene. That’s 3 pages each. That’s 35 pages right there. And that’s just their setup scene. You still have to give them follow-up scenes that explain their purpose in the story. You’re on page 50 before you’ve even mentioned a plot!
That’s how this script reads. I could feel Andrew Kevin Walker’s struggle. He had all these characters to set up before he could get to the New York stuff, so what he would do is he would set up five characters and then he’d have some action scene where Sabertooth would fight Wolverine. Then we’d do five more characters and we’d get a set piece where the government would attack the X-Men. You put those scenes there to entertain the reader in the midst of all this setup because it feels like it’s the only way to keep the audience’s attention. But the reality is, you needed to find a way to set everyone up faster so you could get us to that plot ASAP.
Look at Toy Story. Toy Story has just as many characters as X-Men. But Toy Story is under two hours. So what are they doing differently? What they’re doing is one of the things that the best writers get paid so much money for, which is to not only set up characters BUT TO SET THEM UP AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE and DO SO IN A WAY THAT THEY’RE INSTANTLY MEMORABLE.
So, with Toy Story, they set up the T-Rex with a quick little moment where he tries to roar but his roar is not scary and – BOOM – we’ve established his character in twenty seconds.
This script should be a cautionary tale for whichever writers get the new X-Men movie. Cause they’re going to face this exact same problem. Audiences need to feel like a big story is emerging in the first act of the movie. At the very least, we should know where it’s going 15 pages into the second act. With this movie, I didn’t know where it was going until the third act started. You can’t do that.
Script link: The X-Men
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Wherever your main plot points happen in your screenplay, there’s a good chance you can move them up earlier. Especially if it’s an early draft you’re working on. We tend to delay our big plot points in early drafts.
