X-23 Creator Will Help Script The Logan Spinoff Movie Alongside James Mangold

Still reeling from yesterday’s big scoop? We wouldn’t blame you.

Doing good on all those theories and half-hearted rumors about an X-23 spinoff, James Mangold announced via THR that he had begun work on a story outline involving Dafne Keen’s Laura, the undisputed breakout star of Logan.

Aside from citing the Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman movie as a source of inspiration, Mangold stopped short of detailing too much, too soon. And for good reason. However that may be, we now have confirmation that Craig Kyle, writer on Thor: Ragnarok and the creator of X-23, will help pen the treatment for Fox’s newly-unveiled spinoff. It’s a project that has been gestating for months, according to Kyle’s Twitter feed, but there is perhaps no one better equipped to map out Laura’s X-Men future than the writer who created her in the first place.

Rooted in a dark and dangerous universe devoid of hope, Logan introduced moviegoers to a world in which the mutant population was teetering on the verge of extinction. But James Mangold and his team still managed to carve out an unforgettable neo-noir, one that borrowed elements from old-school Westerns as it bid farewell to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Assuming Mangold and Kyle stick to this current template, and the embryonic X-23 spinoff turns out to be a sequel, there’s ample material to explore, particularly when you remember that Dafne Keen’s Laura was left in the company of mutants.

One bittersweet farewell to Wolvie later and Laura appears to escape across the Canadian border, where her search for a mutant hideout presumably continues unabated. Could it be that Fox’s X-23 spinoff will pick up directly where Logan left off? Or will Mangold and Kyle flash forward in time? So many questions, so few answers.