Sometimes to stop a monster, you have to become one.

Actor Nicholas Hoult has played X-Men character Hank McCoy a.k.a. Beast across several films now, including First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and this year’s Dark Phoenix, and at one point the idea of giving him his own spinoff movie was toyed with. In fact, a script was written for a film titled X-Men: Fear the Beast, but alas, it didn’t get very far.

In a chat with THR, longtime X-Men editor and composer John Ottman has just shared details about the unmade project, which was penned by his assistant Byron Burton. Long story short, Burton pitched Ottman on the Beast spinoff film, and Ottman was so impressed with the script he wrote soon thereafter that he actually tried to get it made over at Fox.

Universe architect Simon Kinberg, however, declined to read it.

THR details the surprising opening sequence of the story, “The late ’80s-set script begins in a snow-covered Inuit village that’s being stalked by a mysterious creature.”

Ottman explained to the site, “We wanted to have the tenor of John Carpenter’s The Thing where you are in this inhospitable environment.”

X-Men: Fear the Beast also included Wolverine, and ended with the reveal of Mr. Sinister. You can actually read the entire script right here, along with THR’s recap right here.