Perhaps Hollywood will soon solely be funded by solo superhero films, as Collider has reported that Deadpool director Tim Miller is hard at work developing a solo movie for X-Men member Kitty Pryde, best known by the codename Shadowcat.
Pryde is a mutant with the ability to “phase”, basically allowing her and anything she’s touching to pass through solid objects, levitate, etc. She’s appeared in almost all the previous X-Men films, most notably played by Ellen Page in multiple films but having also been played briefly by Sumela Kay in 2000’s X-Men and Katie Stuart in X2, both in small roles that were mostly cameos.
Miller is setting the project up at Fox, currently the home of Deadpool, Marvel’s X-Men and the upcoming New Mutants, and they have been a studio pushing the boundaries of superhero films in recent years. However, with Fox having recently been bought out by Disney in a mammoth deal valued at $52.4 billion, that might complicate things.
Directors like Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and a whole host of others also have projects in development at the studio.
Considering that Miller himself is currently producing a Sonic The Hedgehog movie for Paramount and will be directing the new Terminator film in 2019 under the watchful eye of James Cameron – plus the fact that the Disney/Fox merger still has to pass a 12-18 month regulatory review – and it’s easy to see how an “in development” project can quickly disintegrate.
Still, Miller is actively developing the film despite the many hurdles that he may come across at a later date, and if the film is eventually made, it would be the first time Pryde gets her own solo film and would follow the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which would be Fox’s first two female superhero leads since 2005’s Elektra.
Pryde was originally introduced in the comics as basically a sidekick to the older X-Men in the 1980s, before a Chris Claremont and Al Milgrom miniseries took her and the X-Men on a sidequest to Japan, which increased her popularity and led to her getting first billing in Pryde Of The X-Men, which became the story basis for the pilot of a fan-favourite animated series.
Whether Miller is looking at those early Kitty Pryde storylines as inspiration for the solo film, of if he’s looking to write his own original story is unclear. The project is still in very early development stages and there’s no guarantees right now. But hopefully it moves along to a stage where story and potential casting soon becomes a little clearer.
#Peace.Love.KittyPryde
