X-Men: Charles Melton Likely Out Of The Running To Play Beast As He Circles Another Major Franchise

Universal‘s Fast and Furious franchise moves at a breakneck pace, but the rate at which we’re traveling toward the next installment of the franchise feels like the studio is driving with the parking brake engaged. While the world waits for reliable evidence of the follow-up to 2023’s Fast X, industry insider Jeff Sneider recently shared a rumor that’s bound to get people talking.

via: CBM

Marvel Studios officially announced the main cast of the long-awaited X-Men reboot at D23 in August, with Sadie Sink set to reprise her Spider-Man: Brand New Day role as Jean Grey, alongside Inde Navarrette as Rogue, Kit Connor as Cyclops, Christopher Abbott as Professor Charles Xavier, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Maya Boyd as Storm, and Adam Driver as Nathan Milbury/Mr. Sinister.

More recently, we learned that Gen V and Scream 7 star Asa Germann will play Angel. The original five team members from the comics are expected to feature, which means Beast and Ice-Man will likely be cast at some point.

Charles Melton (Beef season 2, Her Private Hell) was rumored to be up for the role of Hank McCoy prior to the D23 announcement, but we'd later learn that he had joined the cast of Lionsgate's live-action Naruto movie as Kakashi Hatake. Insiders claimed that Melton was still in the running despite his Naruto casting, but we'd be very surprised if that was still the case.

According to Jeff Sneider, Melton's name is being "bandied about internally" for a key role in the next Fast and Furious movie, Fast Forever.

"It’s early days — again, there’s no script for him to read — so there’s no offer, no talks, nada. But his name has come up repeatedly in Universal meetings where the franchise’s future has been discussed."

Sneider adds: "Melton, who was rumored to be part of Marvel’s new X-Men movie, has yet to be announced for that project and probably isn’t among the cast, which leads me to believe that he’s looking for another A-list franchise to be part of."

We should be getting more official X-Men casting news fairly soon, so be sure to keep an eye on CBM for updates.

Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier is set to helm the movie, with Sonny Lee Sung Jin (Beef) and Joanna Calo (The Bear) recently coming aboard to write a new draft of Michael Lesslie's script.

Kevin Feige teased Marvel's plans for the X-Men shortly after SDCC.

"Acquiring the X-Men rights isn't just about... for example, Wolverine is an outstanding character, and we were able to team him up with Deadpool, which is great. But the X-Men are far more than just Wolverine, far more than the original team; fundamentally, it's a universe, a multi-stage saga. Much of that is what we're working towards."

"We’re constantly changing, constantly evolving, but having some guidance helps us act more purposefully, especially with X-Men—it’s already had 10 movies, some very, very good, some I think haven’t lived up to expectations—how do we plan the 'mutant saga' in a very grand way?"

"That being said, we have many more characters to explore in the future—the schedule is already booked until 2042, especially the X-Men," Feige added. "The X-Men have many unexplored characters from the Asia-Pacific region, particularly China, which we're very eager to explore. That's why I'm excited about the X-Men: we can show the world different types of heroes."