‘X-Men’ Adds Christopher Abbott, Adam Driver, Inde Navarette & Maya Boyd; Marvel Studios Pic Set for May 2028

The MCU’s X-Men team is taking shape.

via: EW

Among the names are Sadie Sink as Jean Grey (no surprise here after Spider-Man: Brand New Day), Kit Connor (Heartstopper) as Cyclops, Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) as Emma Frost, Christopher Abbott (East of Eden) as Professor Xavier, Adam Driver (Ferrari) as Mr. Sinister, Maya Boyd (Broadway’s & Juliet) as Storm, and Inde Navarrette (Obsession) as Rogue.

According to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, most of the actors just met for the first time backstage for this announcement.

Fans were hoping for a cast reveal earlier in the year at San Diego Comic-Con, but since deals weren’t solidified at the time, those festivities out of the Marvel Hall H panel primarily focused on Avengers: Doomsday. Instead, the grand unveiling came a month later at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif.

July’s release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in theaters already revealed Sink (Stranger Things) as Jean Grey, a formidable telepath and telekinetic, as well as one of the first members of the mutant super-team from Marvel Comics. Feige previously teased the events of that Destin Daniel Cretton-directed film would lead into X-Men, and then Sink confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that she’d return as the character.

Other names who were signaled early in the press include Connor as our new Cyclops/Scott Summers and Weaving as Emma Frost. Cyclops, with the power of optic blasts, is the future leader of the X-Men, while Ms. Frost is a telepathic femme fatale with the added ability to turn her body into diamonds.

As presented in the pages of Marvel Comics, mutants mark the next stage of human evolution. Unlike most of their heroic peers, they are born with an X-gene that awakens around puberty and grants extraordinary abilities.

Since mutants are often feared and persecuted, Professor Charles Xavier, one of the most powerful telepaths in the comics canon, opens a School for Gifted Youngsters as a safe haven for young wayward mutants. He then assembles the X-Men as a super-team to protect mutantkind.

Prior to Abbott in the role, Patrick Stewart originated live-action Xavier in the 2000-era of X-Men movies. James McAvoy played a younger version of the role in the prequel films, starting with X-Men: First Class (2011).

Navarrette also succeeds actress Anna Paquin, the previous star behind live-action Rogue, a mutant capable of absorbing another’s powers and memories through physical touch. Boyd then follows in the footsteps of Halle Berry and Alexandra Shipp, who both played Marvel’s “Windrider” on the big screen — a mutant with dominion over the weather.

Sinister, meanwhile, is one of the most noteworthy villains of the X-Men as a geneticist with the technology to clone and manipulate DNA. Driver appeared through a video message to fans, first claiming to play Magneto before revealing his true casting as Nathaniel Milbury. Mr. Sinister is most closely associated with the name Nathaniel Essex, but the nefarious figure uses many aliases in Marvel Comics, including a time as Milbury.

Jake Schreier, who directed Thunderbolts* for Marvel, will helm the new X-Men movie.

Over the past few months, rumors have been swirling about various casting choices — though Schreier made clear during a Gotham Television Awards interview that “most of the stuff that gets posted online, I don’t know where it comes from.”

Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo, who worked with Schreier on Thunderbolts*, as well as Netflix’s Beef series, are working on the X-Men script.

Prior to the big Disney-Fox merger of 2019, 20th Century Fox launched a live-action X-Men movie in 2000 that spawned an entire franchise of films. With Marvel’s mutants now living in the same house as Marvel Studios proper, they will officially join the MCU.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) made big moves to incorporate these characters, but the biggest will be this year’s Avengers: Doomsday (out Dec. 18). Multiple stars from the Fox X-Men movies will reprise their past parts among the A-list ensemble.

Coming back are Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as Magneto, James Marsden as Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler. Channing Tatum, who became a fan favorite as Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine, is also reprising his role.

Marvel Studios president Keige previously confirmed that the events of Doomsday will lead into Avengers: Secret Wars (in theaters Dec. 17, 2027), which “really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men.”

X-Men is now earmarked for release on May 5, 2028.