As 20^th Century Fox prepares to launch its biggest "X-Men" movie ever, "X-Men: Age of Apocalypse," a spin-off for the franchise was announced, along with its director.

Josh Boone, director of the film adaptation of the best-selling book "The Fault in our Stars," was slated to helm the "X-Men" spin-off. Coming Soon mentioned that this was one of the three big projects the director has on his plate; the remaining two are "The Vampire Chronicles" for Universal and "The Stand" with Warner Bros. Pictures.

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The movie will follow the universe of the X-Men but will not be directly related to the first parts of the series. iO9 reported that the movie is a stand-alone in the mutant franchise, and it will focus on a group of mutant students studying at the Xavier Institute as superheroes in training, trying to get ahold of their lives as well as their powers, much like a coming-of-age movie, but with mutants.

The original "New Mutants" first came up in 1983, and the concept was to give Professor X a new set of mutant students to teach in his school for the gifted. However, more than adding a new set of mutants to the X-Men roster, The Hollywood Reporter said that the new batch comprises not the normal privileged white Americans that the first X-Men was known for.

Unlke the original X-Men, the new mutants not only varied in terms of their abilities but in their ethnic origins as well; aside from the Native American Danielle Moonstar, there is the werewolf Rahn Sinclair from Scotland, Xia'n Coy Manh from Vietnam, and Roberto de Costa from Brazil.

However, the idea of putting the spin-off with the steady franchise is still up in the air, given that some of the known members of the "New Mutants" are part of the canon franchise, like Blink, Warpath, and the aforementioned Sunspot. If this does push through, then that would mean the fans would have a field day, and the X Family is about to become even bigger.

TagsX-Men, Fault in our stars, Josh Boone, iO9, The Hollywood Reporter