X-Men ’97 directors and the supervising producer discuss the possibility of moving their animated mutants to a larger Marvel Studios project.

X-Men ’97 directors open up on what Marvel project is on their dream list to do for Marvel Studios. While 2024 is marking the year to have the least amount of Marvel Cinematic Universe projects in a long time, Marvel Studios is currently experiencing massive success with the X-Men ’97 TV show on Disney+. Serving as a sequel to X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men ’97 is not only tapping into the fans of the 1990s but also bringing in a whole new audience getting to experience these characters for the first time.

In a new interview with Inverse, Jake Castorena, who is the head director and supervising producer on X-Men ’97, along with episodic directors Chase Conley and Emi Yonemura, were asked if they had a dream Marvel projects they would love to do. The idea of an animated X-Men movie came up as an expansion to the larger X-Men: The Animated Series franchise. as they each shared their following response:

Chase Conley: “First off, it would be a slam dunk. I think that would absolutely be something the audience would want to see, and we would want to be a part of … With animation, the more time and money we get, the better it will be. That’s just a fact.”

Emi Yonemura: “It feels like we’re already making movie-level animation and events. But just to have that budget and time then to make it a full feature, and to kind of do what Spider-Verse and the recent animated Turtles movie did…”

Jake Castorena: “Oh, I love job security. I think myself and the entire team would love to keep doing this. Seven seasons and a movie. Let’s go!

An X-Men ’97 Feature Film Makes Perfect Sense For Marvel Studios

While Marvel Studios may not have an X-Men animated movie in the works, this would be successful for a number of reasons. Given how popular X-Men ’97 is already proving to be, if Marvel Studios would pursue an animated film, it would give the fans more of what they are enjoying right now. While X-Men ’97 is already a well-produced series, a movie would ideally have even more resources, especially for a two-hour feature.

When it comes to DC vs. Marvel, the former has always stood out more in animation, while the latter has struggled, particularly with their animated movies that aren’t Spider-Verse films. However, if Marvel Studios were to pursue an X-Men ’97 film, it would allow them to finally challenge DC. The bigger win for Marvel Studios against DC would be that they would also have a major animated Marvel property playing in theaters, as Warner Bros. has yet to get there with many DC properties.

An X-Men ’97 animated feature would also help Marvel Studios build more goodwill with the MCU audience as they work on their live-action X-Men movie reboot. Hopefully, this is something Kevin Feige and the creative team will consider making down the line. For now, the world can catch new episodes of X-Men ’97 season 1 on Disney+ every Wednesday.