X-Men: Children of the Atom

## Plot

In Moscow, a pair of FSB agents arrive at the apartment of Ilyana Rasputin to arrest her mutant brother Piotr. Two mutants named Sean Cassidy and Kurt Wagner hijack the FSB van to take Piotr. However, Cassidy is killed during a car chase by pursuing soldiers. Piotr and Kurt are soon picked up by Storm, Scott, and Jean in the Blackbird, who reveal that Professor Xavier has been in touch with Cassidy and Wagner for weeks to offer them a place at Xavier Institute. Before they can return, a force grips the Blackbird from the outside, and it's revealed Magneto is taking the strength of the jet. The X-Men, with the help of Piotr and Kurt, manage to escape from Magneto.

Meanwhile, Logan explores an abandoned military installation in Alberta for clues to his past but finds nothing. However, he is attacked by a squad of Sentinels, which he manages to defeat.

Magneto returns from Russia to his underground bunker, where he's recruited new members for his team known as the Brotherhood of Mutants: Toad, Blob, and Pyro. Magneto assigns them with their next imprisoned target: Alex Summers. The Brotherhood breaks into jail later that night and succeeds with its mission of freeing Alex.

Piotr and Kurt begin training with the X-Men in the Danger Room. But tensions erupt when the Professor tells them he suspects Magneto and his "Brotherhood of Mutants" are planning an attack on a high-level government target, and he wants the X-Men to stop the attack when it happens. By now, the team has deduced that the Professor has a personal history with Magneto. In a tense argument, the Professor tells them that an all-out war between humans and Mutants will erupt if Magneto isn't stopped.

Later that night, Scott is awoken by a nightmare, where he sees himself falling from the sky in a burning airplane. Jean uses her powers to see the dream, which brings her to tears. After losing one family, Scott knows that he can't lose another. Jean promises him that he won't. Meanwhile, Logan is having nightmares about his past.

Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants launch an attack on Area 51. Professor Xavier alerts the X-Men, and the team suits up and piles into the Blackbird. When the X-Men arrive in the desert, a tense battle erupts between them and the Brotherhood. Toad leaps past the guards and makes his way inside the base. He eventually finds his way to the base's computer, which he hacks and manages to download many files onto a disk. Before Toad can escape with the disk, Kurt attacks and snatches the disk. Although Toad lost the disk, he reveals to Magneto that what he found in the files confirms the existence of Weapon X.

When Jean visits the Professor later that night, she asks how he and Magneto knew each other. In an emotional state, the Professor can't bring himself to talk about it but allows Jean to scan his mind, revealing his past with Magneto. The next day, the Professor explains what Weapon X is—a Department of Defense project that conducts experiments on live Mutant test subjects. The Professor reveals the reason for their mission in Area 51: Magneto is trying to prove the existence of Weapon X, and he attacked the army base to find information on the project. Believing the attack would spark a human-Mutant war, the Professor wanted to stop Magneto.

After Jean reads Logan's mind, revealing his past with Weapon X, the X-Men openly defy Professor Xavier for the first time and tell him they're going to shut down Weapon X. Finally acknowledging that he can't change his students' minds, the Professor gives the location of the project's headquarters: in a base on the remote Pacific island of Krakoa that can't be found on any map. The X-Men fly to the island in the Blackbird.

The X-Men come up on the remote island patrolled by a platoon of soldiers. The X-Men find themselves ambushed by the Brotherhood, who've followed them to the island via helicopter. As the soldiers dig in and open fire, the enemy teams declare a temporary truce, agreeing to work together to shut down Weapon X. The two teams storm Krakoa, fighting an uphill battle against the soldiers. When the dust clears, no base is found insight.

Scott and Logan investigate their surroundings and eventually discover a hidden passage between two cliffs, which leads them into an underground chamber deep beneath the surface of Krakoa. The two men realize that they're surrounded by locked jail cells filled with the decaying skeletons of Mutant prisoners who've been dead for years. To their dismay, they realize they're too late: the base on Krakoa is abandoned, and the leaders of Weapon X have long since relocated. As Scott explores the abandoned base, he stumbles into a darkened room where a nightmarish face fills several television screens. After another flashback, Scott realizes that the plane his parents died in was shot down.

The X-Men choose to let the Brotherhood go in peace, and they return to the mansion. Scott confronts Xavier and demands to know everything on the disk that the Professor kept from him. The Professor eventually inserts the disk into his computer. On the files, it's revealed that Scott's father was assigned to the Weapon X project but was killed as he intended to tell the truth to the world. The Professor tells Scott that he doesn't know where Weapon X's founder is. Enraged that the Professor didn't tell him the whole story of what happened to his parents, he runs out of the mansion. Moments later, Jean runs after Scott and decides to go with Scott on his journey.

## Marketing

An image from the film was released online on October 2, 2002. The first trailer was teased for release on October 10, but was later confirmed to be incorrect. Between October 13 and 16, four 15-second snippets of the trailer were released online, along with a behind-the-scenes featurette. On October 17, the full trailer aired on CBS during *Survivor*, before being released online. It was shown in theaters with *The Ring*, *The Truth About Charlie*, *I Spy*, *8 Mile, Half Past Dead, Die Another Day, They, Solaris,* and *Extreme Ops*.

On December 13, a second trailer premiered in theaters with *Maid in Manhattan*, *Drumline*, and *Star Trek: Nemesis*. It was released online two days later, and was also attached to *The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Antwone Fisher, Two Weeks Notice, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, National Security, Darkness Falls, Biker Boyz, Final Destination 2, The Recruit, Shanghai Knights, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days*.

A TV spot aired during Super Bowl XXXVII. A 30-second teaser trailer was later released online on February 21, 2003, followed by the full trailer on February 26. It was attached to *Tears of the Sun, Bringing Down the House, Willard, The Core, Phone Booth, Anger Management, Bulletproof Monk,* and *Malibu’s Most Wanted*. On April 8, tickets went on sale.

Promotional partners included Burger King, Dr Pepper, and Kellogg's. Activision released a tie-in video game on April 29, 2003 for Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and PlayStation 2. Toy Biz released a toyline on April 14, consisting of new action figures and electronic Wolverine claws.

## Release

### Theatrical

*X-Men: Children of the Atom* had its world premiere in Tokyo on April 14, 2003. The film held its UK premiere on April 21, 2003 at the Odeon Leicester Square, and the U.S. premiere took place at the Loews Lincoln Square in New York City on April 28, 2003.

### Home media

*X-Men: Children of the Atom* was released on VHS and DVD on October 7, 2003. The DVD release featured two discs, featuring three commentary tracks (Hugh Jackman & Frank Darabont; Avi Arad, Halle Berry & Patrick Stewart; and the screenwriter team), various deleted scenes and documentaries, and a digital X-Men comic.