Drew Goddard Will Write And Direct Fox’s ‘X-Force’ Movie
20th Century Fox is moving full steam ahead with the X-Men franchise, and now one of its biggest spinoffs has found a new director. AfterKick-Ass 2’s Jeff Wadlow spent years attached, a new report says thatDrew Goddard, the man who directedThe Cabin in the Woods, will write and direct the studio’sX-Forceteam-up film, which will unite characters like Deadpool, Cable, and Domino in a Black Ops group. Watch your back, Suicide Squad.
Deadlinebroke the news about Goddard’s involvement. This project has been on the studio’s radar forover a year, withThe Greydirector Joe Carnahanat one point set to write the script. Goddard, who got his start writing TV shows likeBuffy,Angel,Alias, andLostand moved on to the big screen with screenplays forCloverfield, World War Z,andThe Martian, will take over writing duties as well along with leading the production as its director. Simon Kinberg, Lauren Shuler Donner, and Ryan Reynolds will produce.
The X-Force are essentially a dark mirror version of the X-Men. Instead of fighting in the public eye to win mutants respect from regular humans, they tend to embark on darker, more violent, sometimes morally questionable missions to protect mutantkind from threats the X-Men can’t handle. The group has a rotating roster of members in the comics, but the film version is expected to feature the return of Reynolds as Deadpool, Josh Brolin as Cable, and Zazie Beetz as Domino.
It’s unclear which other members are joining up in this movie, but it’s potentially worth noting thatthere was some talk last yearabout X-23, the character introduced on the big screen in this year’sLogan, potentially being a part of the squad. But it may be worth noting thatX-Forcecreator Rob Liefeld has been pretty vocal on Twitter since this announcement was made about sites making sure that the right team members are represented in images attached to articles, and one of his comments seemed down on the idea of Wolverine being part of the team, so I’m not sure what, if anything, that might mean for X-23’s inclusion:
If your images of X-Force film don’t include Cable and Domino, you might want to sit this one out, press folks.
— robliefeld (@robertliefeld)July 26, 2025
TRUTH! But Wolverine as the leader ain’t the counter option.https://t.co/YU0fwbER01
In a situation that can be pretty typical in Hollywood, Goddard has experienced a few bad breaks over the years when it comes to getting projects off the ground. He was involved with launching Netflix’sDaredevil, but dropped that when Sony hired him to write and direct theirSinister Sixmovie that ultimately fell apart. He also wrote the screenplay forRobopocalypse, which Steven Spielberg came within inches of directing before moving on to other things, leaving that project sitting in development hell.
Since helming the absolutely stellarCabin in the Woods, he’s directed a few episodes ofThe Good Placeand is now working on a small thriller calledBad Times at the El Royalethat stars Jeff Bridges and Chris Hemsworth. Deadline says Goddard has “cracked” the script forX-Forcealready, so he’ll be able to get up and running on that movie as soon as he’s done withEl Royale. He’s been flirting with superhero properties for a long time, so I’m glad that he’s finally found one that seems like a good fit; more importantly, though, as a massiveCabinfan, I’m just glad we’ll be seeing another directorial effort from Goddard again soon.
The X-Men slate is looking pretty strong right now. Josh Boone’sNew Mutantswill hit theaters onApril 13, 2018, David Leitch’sDeadpool 2arrives onJune 1, 2018, and Simon Kinberg’sX-Men: Dark Phoenixarrives onNovember 2, 2018.X-Forcedoesn’t have an official release date yet, but it seems likely that it’ll arrive sometime in 2019. I’ll leave you with a Liefeld-approved image of the X-Force that may point to which characters we’ll see in the movie:
Here you go!pic.twitter.com/LueEl8oR9L
