They’re the words X-Men fans have been waiting to hear since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox half a decade ago: Marvel is beginning work on their first X-Men feature film.

Although there have been rumblings that Marvel was looking for potential writers to tackle the project late last year, it now appears they’ve settled on their preferred candidate. Deadline reports that Michael Lesslie, who co-wrote the recent film version of The Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, is “in negotiations to pen the movie.”

As you would expect, Marvel’s Kevin Feige is producing the film.

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Although Disney acquired Fox some five years ago, Marvel has been extremely slow to develop their own versions of the properties they acquired the film rights to in that transaction. Their Fantastic Four movie only recently settled on its main cast; it’s currently scheduled to open in theaters in July of 2025.

In the interim, Marvel has gradually teased more and more hints of a hidden mutant presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They revealed that Ms. Marvel was actually a mutant (something that previously wasn’t reflected in Marvel’s comics, although they have since altered her origin to make her an X-Man there as well) and they included a cameo by Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Kesley Grammer’s Beast in The Marvels.

Marvel’s most recent Disney+ series, X-Men ’97, was an animated sequel to the 1990s cartoon about the property; it’s gotten some of the best reviews of any of Marvel’s streaming shows to date.

The X-Men movie does not have a release date; the next MCU film, Deadpool & Wolverine, opens in theaters on July 26.