The closest we've come to a solid update on Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot is a report from the trades revealing The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes scribe Michael Lesslie is penning the screenplay.
Who knows how much has changed since then but, as far as we're aware, no director is attached and Lesslie may not even be the current writer on the project.
Despite that, the casting rumours continue coming in thick and fast. Yesterday, we shared a breakdown of the actors who are supposedly in the running for X-Men. And today, we have possible Mister Sinister casting!
According to insider @MyTimeToShineH, Marvel Studios is eyeing Dune, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Skyfall star Javier Bardem to play the iconic X-Men villain in the MCU. You may recall that he was once said to be in line to play The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Galactus.
Mister Sinister is expected to serve as the big bad of the franchise in the next Saga of storytelling, meaning we'll likely see him in more than just one movie. However, the endgame is reportedly an Avengers vs. X-Men movie.
In the comics, Nathaniel Essex is a brilliant but twisted geneticist and supervillain, obsessed with genetic manipulation and the perfect mutant gene, often experimenting on Cyclops and Jean Grey due to his fascination with the Summers bloodline. Created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri, he first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #221 in 1987.
Addressing the future of the X-Men in the MCU last year, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said, "I think you will see that continues in our next few movies with some X-Men players that you might recognize. Right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men."
"Again, [it’s] one of those dreams come true. We finally have the X-Men back." Reading between the lines, it appears the "Mutant Saga" is very nearly upon us as we rocket to the end of the ongoing Multiverse Saga.
Marvel Studios has been sitting on the rights to the X-Men for the better part of six years, but after critical and commercial flops like Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants, the characters being put on ice for a while was a must (and, the meantime, access to Earth-10005 has proved an easy way to add mutants to the Multiverse Saga).
Do you think Bardem would be a good fit for the MCU's Mister Sinister?