James Franco is the next Hollywood actor to be added to the growing list of stars joining FOX’s X-Men Universe.
Simon Kinberg, producer of most of the past X-Men films and director of upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix, is attached to produce a stand-alone ‘Multiple Man’ film. It will, as far we know, take place inside of the Fox superhero universe, despite the ongoing negotiations the company is currently undergoing with Disney to sell their properties.
Multiple Man, also known as Jamie Madrox, first appeared in the comics in 1975’s Giant-Size Fantastic Four No. 4, which was created by Len Wein. The mutant has the ability to create duplicates of himself to confuse his enemies. Eric Dane briefly appeared as the character in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, which was directed by Brett Ratner.
In the comics, Multiple Man also shows up in various other timelines and iconic runs, such as X-Factor, Civil War and the Messiah Complex. He’s worked for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA in the past as well.
The Multiple Man film is set to be written by Wonder Woman scribe Allan Heinberg. It will be produced under Kinberg’s Genre Films label, as well as Franco and Ramona Films.
RELATED: 'Spider-Man' villain Morbius the Living Vampire getting his own spin-off
A Multiple Man film is just one of the many spin-offs that Fox Marvel currently has planned. They’ve already had great success with Deadpool and Logan in the past, and now all New Mutants and Deadpool 2 are on the way in 2018, along with Dark Phoenix. There’s also a supposed Gambit movie starring Channing Tatum in development, but we’ll believe that one when we see it.
James Franco, meanwhile, can be seen in the upcoming The Disaster Artist. He’s played a popular comic-book character before in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, in which he was cast as Harry Osborn.