In recent weeks, James Mangold's Logan has delivered us nice little bits and pieces that have gotten us sufficiently excited for the upcoming X-Men film. This has included not only a fantastic debut trailer, but also a series of cool black and white photos. The latest comes to us from star Hugh Jackman, and reveals the character being played by Richard E. Grant in the movie.
According to the caption on this Tweet, the great British actor will be playing a character named Rice - and if we use Marvel history and context for clues, it seems that Richard E. Grant will be playing Dr. Zander Rice. In addition to being the son of one of the original Weapon X developers (the program that gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton), he is the scientist who winds up becoming responsible for the creation of X-23 - a.k.a. the young girl in Logan being played by Dafne Keen. In the comics, he has a serious grudge against Wolverine given that the mutant killed his father while escaping the original Weapon X program, and given that Logan is set in the future, it's entirely possible that element of the character could wind up becoming part of the big screen X-Men universe.
Richard E. Grant has a long history of both fantastic villain and non-villain performances on his resume, and we couldn't be more happy about seeing him introduced to the X-Men franchise. Overall, James Mangold has done a brilliant job putting together a talented ensemble for his latest film, which also includes Patrick Stewart along with Stephen Merchant and Boyd Holbrook. When you combine those elements with the incredible stark and Mad Max-esque atmosphere presented by the first trailer, it seems to suggest that Logan will wind up being a special film in the comic book movie canon.
While we have continually been getting these teases for Logan, we're still not entirely sure what the movie is about - though that's actually been kind of nice in this day and age when trailers tend to give away huge moments from the third act. Hopefully the marketing department will be able to keep that going as we get into 2017 and closer to the film's surprisingly soon release date.
Logan, which is set to be Hugh Jackman's final performance as Wolverine, will be in theaters on March 3rd. You can be sure to expect a whole lot more of our coverage of the film in the months and weeks leading up to the release, so be sure to stay tuned for all the latest updates and teases that the blockbuster has to offer!
