Filmmaker Jake Schreier’s ascent has been quiet, deliberate, and now, increasingly impossible to ignore. A director who’s long moved between intimacy and scale, Schreier first made a name for himself in the indie space with “Robot & Frank” and the quietly affecting YA adaptation “Paper Towns.” But it was his work on Netflix’s “Beef”—directing the early, tone-setting episodes of Lee Sung Jin’s rage-fueled character study—that reintroduced Schreier to a broader audience and revealed a director with a striking command of emotional dissonance, tension, and character complexity. That work earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing, and more importantly, seemed to crystallize the through-line of his career: an interest in people on the verge.
That preoccupation carries over to Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*,” which hit digital platforms this week after a theatrically modest but narratively bold run. Far from a rote team-up flick, “Thunderbolts*” leans into internal damage and post-traumatic drift, a film about the shame, regret and guilt its anti-heroes must overcome in order to find their true potential.
Its lineup—Florence Pugh’s Yelena, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell’s U.S. Agent, among others—is a collection of broken operatives and walking contradictions, more united by emotional residue than ideology. Schreier directs the material with a steady hand, anchoring spectacle in mood, and finding space for character in a genre that often bulldozes nuance.
And Marvel clearly took notice. Speaking just days ago about the future of mutants in the MCU, studio head Kevin Feige confirmed what had long been rumored: Schreier’s “X-Men” will be a younger, more emotionally grounded take on the franchise. “Jake’s going to make a youth-focused reboot,” Feige said. “That may be reflected in mutant castings, and it’ll definitely be felt in the tone and perspective of the film.” In other words, this isn’t your Gen-X “X-Men,” and you should adjust your casting expectations.
And yet, for all its psychological texture, “Thunderbolts” may be a prelude to Schreier’s most high-wire assignment yet: Marvel’s “X-Men” reboot. Long-rumored and much-anticipated, the project is still cloaked in secrecy, but Schreier’s involvement is genuine—and, based on our conversation about “Thunderbolts*” and its digital release, already quietly in motion.
“I mean, yeah, without going into too much—really almost any detail,” Schreier said, laughing, conscious of Marvel’s ever-watchful eyes. “What I can say is, it’s just inherently interesting and complex material.”
That word—complex—resurfaces often in Schreier’s framing of the “X-Men,” and not without reason. He seems drawn less to the iconography than to the metaphorical and interpersonal underpinnings of the property. Since their creation in the 1960s, the “X-Men” have served as a potent metaphor for marginalization—mutants as stand-ins for the persecuted, the misunderstood, the othered. Whether read through the lens of civil rights, queer identity, or generational alienation, the stories have always reflected societal anxiety about difference and acceptance. In that sense, the franchise doesn’t just invite emotional and political complexity—it demands it.
“The core idea of what ‘X-Men’ is involves complexity,” he continued. “It’s an incredible opportunity with super interesting characters and [much] internal conflict. These characters are wrestling with their identity and place in the world—that’s inherently interesting and complex material.”
It’s telling that Schreier is thinking in terms of character before canon. Marvel, of course, has tread this ground before—most notably across two decades of Fox’s “X-Men” franchise—but Schreier seems aware that familiarity demands reinvention.
When asked if Marvel’s take will be recognizably different from what came before, he nodded carefully.
“Yeah, I think that’s fair to say,” he offered. “There’s that red sniper dot out there somewhere, you know….,” he joked about Marvel’s watchful ears and eyes. “But to be able to explore all of the ideas that are inherent to that rich source material, but also at the scale inherent to the source material, that’s like a very rare and fortunate opportunity. That’s very exciting.”
He won’t say more—and can’t. But his “Beef” work, his sense of tone in “Thunderbolts,” and his recurring focus on wounded psyches all point toward an “X-Men” film that might finally restore the emotional allegory at the core of the franchise. Schreier isn’t here to reinvent the wheel, but he will likely rewire the emotional engine.
Marvel’s “X-Men” is still on the horizon. But Jake Schreier, it seems, has already begun mapping out what makes these mutants matter.
“Thunderbolts*” (also known as “The New Avengers”) is currently available to rent or purchase on digital platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Fandango At Home. It was released on May 2, 2025, and hit digital platforms on July 1, 2025. The Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD versions of the film will be released on July 29, 2025. More from this interview soon.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
