On a book like 'X-Men,' you have to stay true to the established fiction, working with editors to ensure continuity, sometimes across multiple titles.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Studios, to cut through the clutter, want recognisable titles. But that does not excuse you, as a writer, from having an original story.
'X-Men' films have always been big, and necessarily so, because of the stories they have to tell.
Unfortunately, the author of a book pretty much gives up control of the story when the producers take over a book to make it into a movie.
As far as I know, the original 'X-Men' actors will remain in the franchise.
I do one Xanth novel a year, because at the moment that is all that publishers will accept; they don't want any other type of fiction from me, so Xanth pays my way.
Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens.
There's this trouble with books for me because I'm terrible at thinking of titles. The truth is, even with the titles that I've landed on in the end, they always feel wrong. I think it's because of this whole problem of having to package your book in a certain way.
Writers have it easy. If you write a bestseller or have your book made into a movie, you'll never have to work again, or so the myth goes.
The truth is that every writer, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is trying to write something truly original and that's what I think I'm doing.
The great thing about 'X-Men' is that it takes characters that are quite firmly established in the comics and puts them in new contexts.