Written By: Nick Poulimenakos

A couple of weeks ago, THR reported that James Franco was apparently working on an X-Men spin-off centered on Multiple Man with Simon Kinberg producing. Now, Franco himself has officially confirmed that he is indeed involved in a new superhero project for the X-Men franchise.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Franco spoke about working on a new superhero film that he will both act in and produce:

“I do have a superhero that I am developing. I don’t know how much I can say. But I will say I am producing and performing in it. Or will perform in it. It’s early stages. I think probably what I can say is, like anything, there’s a need to develop more. I have a company with my brother now called Ramona Films. We’re developing all kinds of movies. Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? So that separates it from what I was doing alone, me making a Cormac McCarthy film, pushing into the new frontier of necrophiliacs.”

Franco then moved on to talking about his producing partner on the film, Simon Kinberg, who has been involved with the X-Men franchise since X-Men: The Last Stand:

“What I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan — it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years, but they are going to go hard R,” Franco says. “And we’re going to take, you know, this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. Deadpool‘s almost like an action romantic comedy. And Logan‘s like a western, you know? “So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property…It’s in the X-Men universe.”

The character who Franco is reportedly playing is Jamie Madrox aka Multiple Man. Created by Len Wein, Madrox has the power to create duplicates of himself. A background character for more than 15 years, he became a fan-favourite when writer Peter David made him a member of his X-Factor.

FOX’s upcoming X-Men movies that are getting released include The New Mutants on April 13, 2018, Deadpool 2 on June 1, 2018, X-Men: Dark Phoenix on November 2, 2018, and Gambit on February 14, 2019.

Are you excited for a Multiple Man movie? Let us know in the comments below!