'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children' Trailer: Tim Burton Channels the X-Men

Since his seminal Batman movies, director Tim Burton has steered clear of comic-book superhero adventures. However, this September, he’s set to deliver a fantastical saga that looks like it’ll serve as his own very peculiar variation on the X-Men. Watch the new trailer above.

Based on the novel by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will chart the odd odyssey of a teenage boy named Jacob (Asa Butterfield) who becomes the newest resident at an orphanage on a mysterious island that’s run by Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) — who, per her name, can transform into a fantastical winged creature. That ability is hardly uncommon at her home, where she’s assembled a group of magically-abled kids whose various powers — fanged mouths on the back of their heads, levitation, etc. — make them Burton-esque variations on Marvel’s outcast mutants.

Unsurprisingly, these unique individuals are wanted for their extraordinary abilities, and the villain hunting them is none other than Samuel L. Jackson, here sporting glowing eyes, white hair and a hand that can transform into a blade. While the action on display in this first look seems to be heavy on the sort of CGI that Burton employed in his Alice in Wonderland, the production and character design harken back to his earlier, gothic works like Beetlejuice and Sleepy Hollow.

Set to be one of the fall’s big releases, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children lands in theaters on Sept. 30.