The New Mutants movie has most of its main cast assembled, but there's still one heroic character left to be taken care of for the spinoff. Unlike the previous X-Men entries, New Mutants won't only have mutants as its main protagonists. Well, a mutant from Earth, anyway. One of the members of this team will be Warlock, who is a mechanical organism from outer space. This franchise hasn't used aliens before, so including Warlock will be uncharted territory for New Mutants. As for how Warlock will be represented on the big screen, it appears that the production might be going the motion capture route.
There's a New Mutants casting call going around looking for Caucasian actors anywhere from 20 to 60 years old who must be over 6 feet 9 inches tall and good with movement for a "featured role with no dialogue." So rather than use practical effects for Warlock or throw in a little CGI enhancement, this casting information from Omega Underground suggests that New Mutants' version of the character will be a motion capture creation, similar to what Deadpool did for Colossus. Not only that, but since Warlock speaks in the comics (albeit in an unusual way), one would imagine that a more well-known actor will be hired later to voice the alien rather than make him completely silent.
Introduced in 1984's New Mutants #18, Warlock is a member of the Technarchy, who survive by infecting beings with a "techno-organic" virus so that they can absorb their victims' life force. Warlock, however, is more compassionate than the other members of his species, partly due to being a mutant, and thus didn't want to drain any sentient beings. Despite initially being considered a threat, Warlock proved to the X-Men that he wasn't dangerous to them, and he was soon drafted into the New Mutants. Until now, Warlock's only appearance outside of the comics was in the 1990s X-Men animated series. Whether he's created through motion capture, CGI or even practical effects, it's all but certain that New Mutants' Warlock will be one of the most visually distinctive characters the X-Men film series has ever seen.
New Mutants' main cast includes Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Willaims as Wolfsbane, Charlie Heaton as Cannonball, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, and Blu Hunt as Mirage. Rosario Dawson is also in talks to play Dr. Cecilia Reyes, the team's mutant mentor. While the exact _New Mutants_s plot hasn't been revealed yet, the team will reportedly be battling the monstrous Demon Bear, and director Josh Boone has described the movie as being a "full-fledged horror" tale.
With production scheduled to begin next month in Montreal, New Mutants will arrive in theaters on April 13, 2018.
