Like Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in the next Star Trek movie, another pair of pals is going to pop up on screen in younger models. Fox has signed Batman Begins writer David Goyer to develop a Magneto X-Men spinoff that would follow the friendship between the young Magneto and Charles Xavier — meaning new, younger actors to take over the X-Men roles from Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Goyer, whose latest directorial effort, the thriller The Invisible, opens this week, also wrote several of the Blade scripts, directed Blade: Trinity and is at work on The Dark Knight's screenplay.
And in other X-Men news, casting reportedly has begun for Wolverine, the X-Men spinoff that will feature Hugh Jackman reprising his role as the titular wolf-faced good hero. David Benioff (The Kite Runner) wrote the script.
The flurry of spinoff news comes during a week in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon denied that he's been approached about directing X-Men 4.