James Franco hopes Multiple Man pushes X-Men franchise into a new genre

Earlier this month, word emerged that Twentieth Century Fox was looking to develop a Multiple Man film as a vehicle for James Franco, who would play the title character, a mutant with the ability to create instant duplicates of himself. The potential X-MEN spin-off is still in the early stages, and in a recent interview with THR during their Hollywood Masters interview series, James Franco wouldn't even name the character as he didn't want to lose it, but would admit that he was in the process of working on a superhero film in the X-MEN franchise.

In addition to starring in the film, James Franco will also produce the project alongside X-MEN franchise producer Simon Kinberg through Ramona Films, the company he created with his brother, Dave Franco. The brothers are in the process of developing all kinds of movies, and the main goal is to push each and every project into new ground, including the Multiple Man film.

What I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan — it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years, but they are going to go hard R. And we're going to take, you know, this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. Deadpool's almost like an action romantic comedy. And Logan's like a western, you know?

Pushing the X-Men franchise into a new genre might have been seen as a big departure just a few years ago, but as James Franco said, DEADPOOL and LOGAN have paved the way for much more experimentation, which has me quite excited for the future of the franchise.

We'll be getting quite a lot of X-MEN movies next year, starting with Josh Boone's horror-infused THE NEW MUTANTS on April 13, 2018, David Leitch's UNTITLED DEADPOOL SEQUEL on June 1, 2018, and Simon Kinberg's X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX on November 2, 2018. As for future installments of the X-MEN franchise, GAMBIT seems to be finally underway with Gore Verbinski set to direct for a February 14, 2019 release, and there's also an X-FORCE film, a X-23 spin-off, as well as further DEADPOOL and THE NEW MUTANT sequels in the works. Our mutant cup runneth over.