20th Century Fox has had a string of successful, solid superhero movies, but the studio has a bit of a lag coming up in its schedule. While The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and especially Deadpool were all big hits, after next month’s X-Men: Apocalypse, the studio doesn’t have anything officially on the books just yet. The Gambit spinoff was supposed to already be filming at this point, but that film hit yet another snag yesterday as it’s been delayed until the end of this year, which could be a sign that the movie may not ever really happen. And Deadpool 2 is a given, but the studio has yet to officially get the ball rolling on the sequel aside from having Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick begin work on the script.

But that’s not to say Fox is in trouble. It’s possible that the smashing success of Deadpool has altered their plans a bit, and we can reasonably expect to see a Deadpool-led X-Force movie follow shortly after Deadpool 2, and now we have a promising update on another X-Men spinoff that’s been in the works for a while: New Mutants.

The younger-skewing comics adaptation has been in development at the studio for a few years, with Kick-Ass 2 director Jeff Wadlow previously attached to direct before Fox most recently signed The Fault in Our Stars filmmaker Josh Boone to co-write and direct the team-up film. Speaking with IGN, producer Simon Kinberg said work continues on New Mutants:

“Josh Boone and his writing partner are working on the script. They’re doing a really nice job of it, and it’s a really cool one, because in many ways, like Deadpool was so different from the mainline X-Men movies, New Mutants… It’s maybe not as different as Deadpool, but it has its own unique, original voice to it.”

And just what is that “original voice” of New Mutants? According to Kinberg, it’s something that may spark to a specific subsection of moviegoers:

“That’s the fun for me, working in the X-Men universe, creating these sort of standalone movies that have a different vibe to them. And New Mutants has more of a YA [Young Adult] vibe to it.”

The producer added that fans can expect to see “some familiar faces” from the main X-Men movies pop up in New Mutants, but it’s unclear how soon the film might get underway. Boone is currently getting ready to direct the Stephen King adaptation Revival before hopefully turning his attention back to the long-developing The Stand, but if The Stand remains in a holding pattern once he’s done with Revival, it’s possible he could turn his attention to New Mutants.

Fox has release dates for unspecified movies staked out for October 6, 2017, January 12, 2018, and July 13, 2018, and since Apocalypse director Bryan Singer is taking a break from the franchise to tackle 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, an X-Men sequel is unlikely to pop up before 2019. So does that mean New Mutants is intended to fill one of these release dates? We don’t know for sure, but between Kinberg’s comments and Boone’s involvement, I’m hoping we see the film come to fruition sooner rather than later.