The Phone Call From a Best Friend That Drew ‘Beef’ Creator Lee Sung Jin Back to Marvel for ‘X-Men’
Few television writers have made as striking an arrival in the prestige space as Lee Sung Jin. The Emmy-winning creator behind ‘Beef’ assembled an extraordinary Season 2 ensemble featuring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Cailee Spaeny alongside Korean cinema legends Youn Yuh-jung and Song Kang-ho. That followed a celebrated first season that swept major awards circuits and cemented Lee as one of the most distinct voices working in television.
That momentum made the prospect of Lee returning to the Marvel universe feel far from certain. He had already collaborated with director Jake Schreier and ‘The Bear’ co-showrunner Joanna Calo on ‘Thunderbolts*’, an MCU team-up that proved the trio had real and trusted creative chemistry together. But with two seasons of ‘Beef’ complete and a slate of personal projects demanding his focus, signing onto another superhero production was simply not in the plan.
Then Schreier called. Speaking to Men’s Health, Lee revealed he had not been planning to step back into Marvel so soon after ‘Thunderbolts*’, with his own creative ambitions still pulling at his attention. What changed everything was the combination of the property and the friendship. Lee grew up watching the ‘X-Men‘ animated series every Saturday morning as a child and watched every single episode, a lifelong attachment to these characters that made declining an invitation from his closest collaborator almost unthinkable.
Schreier was confirmed as director of Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ reboot following the success of ‘Thunderbolts*’, and the trusted trio quickly reassembled around the new project. Both Lee and Calo have come in and are actively working on a current draft of the screenplay, marking a notable shift since screenwriter Michael Lesslie had previously been attached to the project before this team came aboard. Schreier has spoken warmly of his collaborators, describing them as the creative forces behind two of the most interesting shows on television right now.
What the three are building sounds unlike anything the franchise has previously put on screen. Speaking with Collider, Schreier described the ‘X-Men’ comics as containing “interpersonal drama, almost of a soap opera quality” alongside their ideological themes, making the case that the key to getting the film right lies in writers who can root big ideas in personal stakes. Lee’s own comments point in the same direction, outlining a character-first vision that leans into the soapy intra-team dynamics and emotional richness that defined Chris Claremont’s celebrated run on the source material.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has described the reboot as a youth-focused project that will feel recognizably different from the Fox-era franchise, and Schreier has confirmed the film is intended to explore the full scale and complexity inherent to the comics in ways that have not been achieved on screen before. The ‘X-Men’ film is expected to arrive after ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’, with an untitled Marvel slot on Disney’s release calendar pointing toward the summer of 2028.
With a creative team this tightly bonded and a vision this clearly rooted in a lifelong love of the source material, the MCU’s long-awaited mutant reboot has quietly become one of the most promising projects in the pipeline. Which X-Men characters are you most hoping Lee Sung Jin and Jake Schreier decide to place at the emotional center of this story?
