While not technically a reboot of the franchise, Matthew Vaughn’s (KickAss, Layer Cake) X-Men: First Class will take the franchise back to its early days, when Professor Xavier and Magneto were still BFFs, a new enemy is threatening mutants, and the school for mutants is just beginning to form.
Most of the details are still rumors, but James McAvoy (Wanted, Atonement) has been confirmed as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds, Jonah Hex) has been cast as a pre-Magneto Erik Lensherr, Brian Singer has returned to produce and contribute to the story, and Vaughn will direct. Beyond that, rumors have Amber Heard (Zombieland, Pineapple Express) playing Mystique, Rosamund Pike (Surrogates, An Education) as Moira MacTaggert, Caleb Landry (Friday Night Lights) as Banshee, and Benjamin Walker (Flags of Our Fathers) as Henry McCoy, also known as Beast.
Cyclops and Jean Grey are also expected to be in the movie, but no word yet on possible casting.
Most of the details of the film are still under wraps, but Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League, Sex and the City 2) is in negotiations to take the role of Emma Frost. In the comics, Frost is a sometimes good, sometimes bad telepath that also has the ability to turn her skin as hard as diamond. Her current on-and-off relationship with Cyclops keeps her on the X-Men’s side, but how she will appear in the movie is still anyone’s guess.
In the last X-Men movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there was a passing mention to a mutant named Frost with diamond-like skin that was rescued towards the end of the movie. It was a minor point of the movie, and likely meant as an Easter Egg for fans more than anything, but if the continuity remains between the movies, the character of Frost may carry over.
X-Men: First Class has a tentative release date of June 3, 2011.
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