X-Men ’97 Hires New Showrunner for Upcoming Seasons

Summary

• X-Men ’97 has officially been confirmed for Season 3.
• Matthew Chauncey announced as head writer for Season 3, taking over from creator Beau DeMayo.
• Marvel Animation is aiming for a 2025 release date for X-Men ’97 Season 2, which is expected to focus on villain Apocalypse.

X-Men ’97 has already been confirmed for Season 3 — and the second season of the hit television series hasn’t even aired yet. X-Men ’97 is one of the best-reviewed Marvel adaptations of all time, and expectations are high for the second season, which is expected to focus on the X-Men villain Apocalypse. Work on X-Men ’97 Season 2 is underway, and Marvel Animation has announced that Season 3 is in development with a new head writer.

Deadline confirmed that Matthew Chauncey will be the head writer on X-Men ’97 Season 3, taking over for Beau DeMayo, who created the revival and wrote Season 1, and did a good amount of work on Season 2 before getting fired by Marvel a week before X-Men ’97 premiered. Season 2 is currently in production and DeMayo’s scripts have been revised, while development for Season 3 is now underway with Chauncey working closely with X-Men ’97 director Jake Castorena. Deadline also reports that Larry Houston, and Eric and Julia Lewald, executive producers on the original X-Men: The Animated Series, will remain consulting producers for X-Men ’97.

Fan Expectations Are High for the New Seasons

Matthew Chauncey has quite a history with Marvel. He was previously a story editor on What If…? and is the credited writer on some of the best episodes in the series, like “What If…The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes” and “What If…Hela Found the Ten Rings.” He was also a consulting producer on three episodes of Ms. Marvel and the script doctor for Thor: Love and Thunder. All of which is to say: he has experience in the Marvel sandbox.

Given that What If…? is far less critically acclaimed than X-Men ’97, many fans are nervous regarding the future of the series. While much of Season 2 was laid out before DeMayo’s departure, Season 3 will be the first one fully guided by a new writer. DeMayo was not the sole reason for the success of X-Men ’97, of course; he had a talented group of writers, but it is hard to argue that he did not infuse a lot of personality into the show. He put a lot of his experiences as both a member of the LGBTQ+ community and a person of color into the creative DNA of the show, which puts a lot of pressure on the creative team to follow.

The fact that Marvel Animation hired Chauncey for X-Men ’97 is also the first official confirmation fans have gotten that X-Men ’97 will continue past Season 2. It appears Marvel is very happy with the audience’s reaction to the series and wants to begin development on Season 3 soon so they do not have a big gap in the schedule. Marvel is currently shooting for a 2025 release date for Season 2, and with What If…? seemingly wrapping up its storyline with Season 3, X-Men ’97 seems perfectly poised to become the new anchor series of Marvel Animation on Disney+.