Back in 2011, the X-Men franchise managed to pull off something kind of incredible. After spending years of establishing actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Rebecca Romijn as cinematic versions of Professor X, Magneto and Mystique, the series completely changed things up with the prequel X-Men: First Class - bringing in younger actors James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence to play the aforementioned parts. Now, three years later, the comic book movie franchise is ready to do a bit of recasting once again, although this time it will be with the characters like Jean Grey, Storm, Cyclops.
This news comes to us from Deadline, which has gotten its hands on some big news about the in-development X-Men: Apocalypse. Included in a somewhat vague plot description of the film - which promises the return of McAvoy's Professsor X, Fassbender's Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Nicholas Hoult's Beast - the site seems to confirm that the movie will include "young Cyclops, Storm, Jean and others." This was previously hinted at by director Bryan Singer back in April, but now it sounds like we can officially start anticipating new casting rumors for young X-Men characters. The report adds that there's a chance that the sequel could be the first movie to introduce the long-rumored Channing Tatum version of Gambit, but the way that information is presented in the article seems more like speculation than confirmation.
Thinking about the timeline of the X-Men franchise, it makes a lot of sense that the new, young versions of characters like Jean Grey, Storm, Cyclops would be introduced. X-Men: Apocalypse begins a full 10 years after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past - which was set in 1973 - and it makes sense that around this time Professor X would be first bringing in some of his most notable students into his school for Gifted Youngsters. Judging from the ages of Famke Janssen, Halle Berry and James Marsden - who first played the trio of mutants in the original X-Men trilogy - we can probably expect that the young versions of their characters will be in their mid-teens.
X-Men: Apocalypse is currently penciled in to be released on May 27, 2016, and production is expected to start up next year. Simon Kinberg is writing the screenplay based on a story he developed with Bryan Singer,Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, and according to Deadline the movie will see the X-Men "fight their most formidable foe yet – an ancient unrelenting force determined to cause an apocalypse unlike any in human history." Are you excited yet? Do you have your own personal casting suggestions for the younger versions of Jean Grey, Storm and Cyclops? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
