Marvel's X-Men Reboot Has a Casting Trend Horror Fans Will Love
If the gnarlier tone of Spider-Man: Brand New Day wasn’t enough to get horror fans excited for the MCU's X-Men reboot, the casting decisions and rumours we've been seeing certainly will.
In Brand New Day, we were introduced to Jean Grey, with Sadie Sink becoming the first official X-Men cast member to be introduced to the MCU. Now, after the Marvel panel at the D23 fan event in Anaheim, we suddenly have what looks like the core group of the upcoming movie.
Whether Kevin Feige and director Jake Schreier have more casting tricks up their sleeve is anyone's guess at this point, but we can say that nearly every concrete announcement and credible piece of hearsay that's surfaced has been to do with an actor with ties to horror cinema. Long may this continue.
The Horror Icons Already Involved In The MCU’s Upcoming X-Men Reboot
When Brand New Day was released in late July and Hollywood’s sort-of best kept secret was finally revealed, it was finally time to ink the first name onto our X-Men casting wall chart. That name, of course, was Sadie Sink — one of the breakout stars of Stranger Things, a show that's been providing younger audiences with a gateway to horror fandom ever since it first started airing on Netflix a decade ago.
Sink is, of course, set to play Jean Grey in the franchise for the foreseeable future, a character who we already know is one of the most powerful in the comics, but one whose abilities have not been explored in quite as creepy a way as they were in Brand New Day; the manner in which she jumped through people's minds when fleeing a scene felt like an eerily organic update on the T1000. Then, there was the Obsession-coded sequence in which she pretended to be MJ just to mess with Peter Parker’s already stressed out mind — so mean.
Soon after that Spidey release, Sink was joined in the cast by Samara Weaving, a bonafide Aussie Scream Queen who has been admirably plying her trade as a horror actress for over a decade now in movies like The Babysitter, Ready or Not and Scream VI. For X-Men, Weaving is set to play the ice queen Emma Frost, a role which January Jones took on briefly back in X-Men: First Class. We can expect Weaving to give the part a different spin.
The next name that was solidly attached was Kit Connor as Scott Summers/Cyclops, and while the baby-faced star of Netflix’s Heartstopper doesn’t quite square with our overall theory here, Connor did appear in the British horror comedy movie Slaughterhouse Rulez — and no, I haven’t seen it either.
Connor's involvement was confirmed when he walked out to join Sink and Schreier on the stage in Anaheim, followed swiftly by Christopher Abbott (a shock choice for Charles Xavier), Samara Weaving (as expected), Inde Navarrette (another twist casting as Rogue), newcomer Mara Boyd (who's set to play Storm) and, beaming in from a soundstage in California, Adam Driver — who jokingly announced that he'll be playing Magneto before confirming his long-rumoured role as Nathaniel Essex, aka Mr. Sinister.
With whispers circulating that Bill Skarsgård, the wild-eyed Swedish star of It and Nosferatu, was the hot favourite to play Professor X, hearing Abbott's name was a surprise — and for me, a welcome one. He might not seem like quite as much of a clear cut piece of horror casting, but the actor has spent his career (since breaking out as Marnie's boyfriend in Girls — a role that did involve some nightmare fuel) taking on roles with a lot more edge than you'd expect for a future Charles Xavier.
Abbott has always been at his best in provocative psychological thrillers, like James White, Martha Marcy May Marlene (which was also the breakout movie for Wanda Maximoff, lest we forget) and Sanctuary. For straight-up horror, he also starred in Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor and played the title role in Wolf Man last year. Honestly, it's a cool choice.
The biggest rug-pull was probably Navarrette's announcement as Rogue. Since breaking out in Obsession earlier this year, the actress' name had been constantly mentioned as a potential Mystique, with Cailee Spaeny and Odessa A'zion seeming like the favourites to play the wavy-haired Southern belle. Either way, Navarette certainly trumps them for the horror DNA we've been talking about.
Having only appeared on stage at this point, Boyd will be an unknown quantity to most movie fans, myself included — but if you happen to find musical theatre scary, she did make her Broadway debut in Merrily We Roll Along in 2023.
Of all of these, Driver of course needs the least introduction. The A-list star has been an indie leading man since breaking out on Girls (same season as Abbott, wouldn't you know) in 2012. That said, if I'm not mistaken, the only Driver joint that you could really call a horror is the under-appreciated 2014 flick Hungry Hearts, but he's been in plenty of gnarly projects over the years (including Megalopolis, a movie that certainly gave Francis Ford Coppola's business manager a few sleepless nights). And in case you hadn't heard, he also played Kylo Ren.
…And The Spooky Rumours
With those all done an dusted, the real question is how many more X-Men Feige is planning to add. We can probably rule Magneto out for this one, so no Alexander Skarsgård or Jensen Ackles for now.
Another name that everyone expected to hear was Beef’s Cailee Spaeny (X-Men is currently being written by that show’s creator, Lee Sung Jin), who, regardless of what you thought of Alien: Romulus as a whole, certainly helped to bring that franchise back to its slasher-in-space origins. She was also a perfect stand-in for Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley — who was, left we forget, one of cinema's first final girls. Spaeny will now not be appearing as Rogue, but perhaps she's still being considered for another name on the X-Men roster.
The Spaeny rumours originally came on the back of solid word that Charles Melton (her Beef co-star and an American Horror Story alum) was being lined up to play Hank McCoy/Beast — although it's reported he may have passed on the role now. More as we get it.
