Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot is finally starting to come together, with Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier set to helm, and scribes Sonny Lee Sung Jin (Beef) and Joanna Calo (The Bear) recently coming aboard to write a new draft of Michael Lesslie's script.
Casting is believed to be underway, and while Marvel hasn't made any offers just yet (as far as we know), expect the trades to begin sharing shortlists before the end of the year.
According to Jeff Sneider in his latest newsletter, both X-Men and Black Panther 3 will enter pre-production "in Q4 of this year." As previously reported, he has also heard that Charles Melton is one of the actors being eyed to play Beast.
He doesn't have any updates on the Odessa A’zion rumor (she was said to be eyed to play Rogue), but we can add a new name to the growing list of rumored X-Men contenders.
Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent, Civil War) could be one of the actors the studio is looking at to play the movie's villain.
"But I’ve also heard Moura’s name floated as a potential James Bond villain, so we’ll see which major franchise lands his sinister services in the wake of his Oscar-nominated turn in The Secret Agent."
We still don't know who the main antagonist of the X-Men movie will be, but Mr. Sinister remains a strong possibility.
Moving to the small-screen corner of the MCU for a moment, Sneider has also heard that "VisionQuest didn’t turn out all that great."
Could we see some of the next generation of mutants in the MCU before the X-Men reboot? @Cryptic4KQual claims that Avengers: Secret Wars will feature "new mutants different from the Doomsday cast."
Rumor has it that the core team will consist of the OG mutant heroes from the comics (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel, and Iceman), but we have heard that the likes of Rogue, Mystique, Gambit and Jubilee will also feature in some capacity.
Hunter Schafer's (Euphoria, Cuckoo) name continues to be brought up for Mystique, as does Cynthia Erivo's (Wicked For Good) for Storm.
During a recent interview with Collider, Kevin Feige confirmed that the reboot will be "youth-oriented."
"Jake’s an incredibly smart guy, and he’s an incredibly talented filmmaker. We had a great experience with him on Thunderbolts, and if you saw that movie, what he did with those character interactions—he also has his pulse on, shall we say, a younger demographic... because X-Men, as it was in the comics, will be a very youth-oriented, focused and cast movie."