There's a huge amount of intrigue surrounding Marvel Studios and filmmaker Jake Schreier's X-Men reboot, but will we get a cast reveal at next weekend's San Diego Comic-Con?
With the movie expected to begin production in the coming months, it's certainly not impossible. However, it does seem more likely that the focus of that Hall H panel will be Avengers: Doomsday and, to a lesser extent, perhaps even Avengers: Secret Wars.
As reports swirl that Adam Driver is the MCU's Magneto (Bill Skarsgård is reportedly the favourite for Professor X), another big X-Men update has just come our way from former Nexus Point News scooper @ApocHorseman. He has a solid track record with that site, so it's worth paying attention to his latest claims about the reboot.
"Since we’re on the topic of X-Men and people asked, here’s everyone I know is for sure in the film," he wrote on X before listing Cyclops, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Rogue, Storm, Professor X, and Magneto. The insider then added, "Characters I’ve heard but haven’t been able to confirm are Beast and Angel, so please take those with a grain of salt."
Later, he'd clarify, "This is just who I’ve heard is in the film and can verify. There [are] definitely more characters, and this isn’t the full lineup. Marvel’s good at keeping some secrets."
Interestingly, the scooper has heard nothing about Wolverine being in the X-Men reboot. The clawed mutant was the focal point of 20th Century Fox's early mutant movies, but sidelining him to focus on other characters isn't necessarily a negative, especially as we're bound to get a Wolverine movie at some point.
He also doubled down on Sadie Sink playing the MCU's Jean Grey, meaning Spider-Man: Brand New Day will introduce the first member of the MCU's X-Men. Highlighting a mutant in what will likely be one of the biggest hits of the summer is a smart move, though it still seems an odd fit for a Spider-Man movie.
For what it's worth, @MyTimeToShineH has shared a familiar rumour about Sinks Jean being X-Men's lead character, suggesting there are big plans for the hero moving forward.
Last year, we asked Schreier how Thunderbolts* had prepared him for the X-Men reboot. "I loved working on it," he told us. "And I loved working with everyone at Marvel. I think that the lesson of the movie is also the lesson in making the movie, which is that you cannot, and I mean, it's kind of obvious making it, that you cannot do it alone. I think that Thunderbolts* is the product of just a massive amount of work."
"Jon Watts was my roommate in college, and I used to go see the Spider-Man movies and be like, 'God. That just seems like so much work. There must be some way where it doesn't feel that way,' and it's like, 'No, it's just a massive amount of work by a ton of people who care deeply,' and I think that I would not have gotten through this without so many [of them]."
"If you can learn to work within that environment and really harness the kind of energy that those people bring, then there's an opportunity to really tell interesting stories and take things to places that are unexpected, and try to make something special," Schreier concluded.
Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot is expected to be released in 2028.