UPDATE: Well, that didn’t last long at all. The Nerdist reached out to 20th Century Fox to directly comment on HitFix’s story and got a “not true.” It’s rare for a rumor to be shot down so quick nowadays. Either it means it’s totally right or totally wrong. My guess? Negotiations ain’t closed yet and talks are up in the air. Here’s to rooting for Arya Stark joins the X-Men-verse! The previous story follows.
Writer/director Josh Boone has cast three up-and-coming actresses as the first members of his cast for the upcoming X-Men spinoff The New Mutants, which he is currently co-writing with Knate Gwaltney.
They are Maisie Williams (Arya Stark on Game of Thrones) as Rahne Sinclair a.k.a. Wolfsbane, a Scottish shapeshifter, Anya Taylor-Joy, the breakout star of the indie horror The Witch, as Ilya Rasputin a.k.a. Magik, and Alexandria Shipp, the X-Men: Apocalypse star who is in talks to return here as Ororo Munroe / Storm.
Additionally, Drew McWeeny of HitFix, who broke the story, reports that the roles of Cannonball, Sunspot and Mirage are still being cast and that James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier a.k.a. Professor X is expected to return in a substantial role.
Williams was no doubt swayed by her on-screen sister and off-screen bestie Sophie Turner, who plays young Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse. Since Shipp is the only young one (we know of) making the jump here, I assume it is because the stories of Jean and Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) are being saved for the franchise proper. Maybe a proper Dark Phoenix telling? We should be so lucky.
With Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine film set for March of next year, the X-Men franchise are at a crossroads (I detailed it here) but between the success of Deadpool and the young blood, the future is finally taking shape and I like it. I’m no comics expert so I trust Drew when he writes this is a classic lineup. If Fox is asking me, I think it’d be a cool idea to set this in the 90s. There’s a whole wave of 90s nostalgia in the culture. The fog of that nostalgia was powerful enough to convince people Full House was ever anything other than the worst. There’s money to be made here.
The New Mutants will probably see release in 2018. X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters a bit sooner, on May 26.
(via HitFix)
