Last week, a rumor did the rounds that Marvel Studios met with Wicked star Cynthia Erivo about potentially suiting-up as Storm in the long-awaited X-Men reboot, and another reliable source has now backed-up this claim.
On the latest episode of The Hot Mic, Jeff Sneider said he's heard that there is "actual interest" in enlisting Erivo to play the weather-manipulating mutant. The reporter also indicated that he knows about another individual (we're not sure if it's an actor or director) on the studio's radar, but is keeping it under his hat for the time being.
Whether Erivo has actually entered talks or is simply one possible contender is hard to say, but we do know that she would jump at the chance to play Ororo Munroe.
Erivo was asked if there's a "dream role" she'd like to manifest while being interviewed by the National Board of Review.
"I really want to play Storm," she responded. "I know it sounds frivolous, but I think we haven't uncovered how grand she is and all of that inner turmoil that she has, so I think there's a world where we could do something like that."
While Erivo would be a huge get for Marvel Studios after her star-making turn in Wicked, we have heard that the studio is looking for actors in the early to mid-20s age range to play the MCU's Children of the Atom, which would follow if Stranger Things alum Sadie Sink is indeed up for the role of Jean Grey as a previous rumor claimed. There's nothing to say that at least a couple of members of the team couldn't take on more of a mentor/teacher role, however.
Though Marvel does (finally) appear to be making progress on the elusive X-Men movie, official updates have been few and far between. All we know for sure is that Michael Lesslie is currently working on the script, and that a director is being sought.
How would you feel about Cynthia Erivo playing Storm in the MCU? Let us know in the comments section down below.
If some of the X-Men make their debut in the next Avengers movies (which they are rumored to do), there's a chance we could get some official casting news fairly soon.
During a recent interview with Discussing Film, Kevin Feige was asked how it feels knowing that "we’re closer to seeing the X-Men and Avengers together on the big screen."
"It is extremely emotional, on a personal level, to have done a movie with Hugh after 25 years and me being a small part of that first X-Men movie. And knowing that, thanks to various corporate studio entity deals, we now have 1000s of characters back — characters I hadn’t frankly thought about in many years because we didn’t have the rights to them. Now that we do, it is great fun thinking [about who we can finally]. Our animated series X-Men ’97 was sort of the first taste of people reuniting with the X-Men mythology and that storyline. The response to that series just further excited us about how to bring the soap opera and the saga of the mutants to the MCU."