Nicholas Hoult's Beast almost got his own X-Men spinoff movie, and you can read an early script for it right now. When Fox decided to relaunch the X-Men franchise with a younger cast, X-Men: First Class was used to re-introduce familiar characters but with new actors. James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) were three of them who continued to be mainstays in the series through Dark Phoenix, with Hoult's version of Beast being the other.
Beast had previously been underutilized in the original X-Men films, as Kelsey Grammar played the blue mutant in X-Men: The Last Stand. In the newer movies, he became an integral part of the team and story, but was never directly put in the spotlight. The success of the soft reboot, namely with X-Men: Days of Future Past, opened up what Fox was willing to make with their mutant property. Several solo movies were in various stages of development, including consideration of a Mystique solo movie, but now it's been revealed that a solo Beast movie was in very early development.
Longtime franchise editor John Ottman revealed to THR that he developed a solo Beast movie around the time of X-Men: Days of Future Past. His then-assistant Byron Burton proposed the idea to Ottman and wrote a script for X-Men: Fear the Beast (the proposed title) in just a few weeks, which Ottman became a fan of. Ottman made tweaks to the script and envisioned the film as a $90 million production that would pick up after the events of Days of Future Past. However, the movie never made it past this early concept phase, as franchise writer/producer Simon Kinberg declined to read it. But, thanks to Ottman, Burton, and THR, you can now read the full rough draft of the script for free.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE BEAST SOLO MOVIE SCRIPT
For those who don't have the time to read the 100-page script by Burton, let's run through some of the broader concepts. The film opened with an homage to The Thing before going back to Beast in the middle of a training session in the Danger Room where he begins to lose control of his powers. He has shared his repressor serum with another scientist who has a similar mutation, but must now go track him down after learning that he is terrorizing an Inuit village. Beast recruits Wolverine to fight the other mutant, while Professor X, Mystique, and even Jubilee have roles. Lastly, there is a post-credits tease that Mr. Sinister has been watching all of this unfold. If the film was successful, they had plans for Omega Red down the road.
While the lower budget and spinoff nature with several X-Men cameos could've made for a solid addition to the franchise, this is still an early version of the script and might have evolved in several different ways. One of the potential benefits of the film for the longevity of the franchise could've been the chance to recast Wolverine with a younger actor. This was something Matthew Vaughn planned to do with his abandoned plans for the franchise. A new Wolverine in this new timeline would have opened the doors for the X-Men franchise to do whatever they wanted with the character. Ultimately, a Beast solo movie is just a fun what-if scenario for the X-Men universe that could have had more significant implications on the franchise with a Mr. Sinister set up, a younger Wolverine, and more.
Source: THR
