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To any fans of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling YA fantasy novel series, I think I can guess what you all are pondering about as you are streaming the Twilight movies on Netflix: what Marvel characters should these be actors be playing? OK, even if that seemingly random question did not pass your mind before, I would be willing to bet that the thought of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the Marvel movies is living rent free in your imagination now that I have introduced the idea, huh? Well, why don’t we have a little fun with this and see which superheroes (or supervillains) from Marvel Comics would be a good fit for the following 10 members of the Twilight cast, starting with our central heroine.
Kristen Stewart - Dead Girl
As Bella Swan, Kristen Stewart finally got to see things from the perspective of a vampire in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (the fifth installment of the franchise), but has yet to see things from the perspective of the ghostly apparitions that haunted her in both the 2007 supernatural thriller The Messengers and Personal Shopper in 2017. To give her that chance, I would cast her as the aptly named “Dead Girl,” who joined the X-Force after her murder activated latent powers such as immortality, regrowing severed limbs, and communicating with the deceased.
Robert Pattinson - Wolverine
With Marvel Studios preparing to reboot the X-Men movies, everyone is curious who will take over for Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I think anyone who has paid attention to the gruff, action star reputation that Robert Pattinson has developed (most notably with 2017’s Good Time) since his curtain call as Edward Cullen can see why he could be a great fit for the Adamantium-clawed, cigar-chomping, Canadian mutant. Plus, the English star of Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman would certainly not be the first to exist in both DC movies and Marvel movies at the same time.
Taylor Lautner - Namor The Sub-Mariner
Many were disappointed that Taylor Lautner did not appear in Netflix’s We Can Be Heroes to reprise the role that made him a promising child star before playing the lycanthropic Jacob Black in Twilight made him a sex symbol: Sharkboy from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D from 2004. The best possible way that he could make up for this absence is to bring another aquatic superhero to the big screen for the very first time: Namor, a Marvel Comics Atlantean who actually predates DC’s Aquaman by a few years.
Ashley Greene - Jean Grey
Someone who has shared the screen with Marvel stars (such as Sebastian Stan in The Apparition) but has never played a superhero (not counting when she voiced Barbara Gordon in the animated Batman: Gotham Knight) is Ashley Greene. The actress would finally be able to bridge that gap in a live-action setting if she was cast as one of the most popular X-Men characters, Jean Grey - known for having psychic powers, similar to her character in the Twilight movies, Alice Cullen.
Jackson Rathbone - Hydro-Man
Alice Cullen’s husband, Jasper Cullen, is played in the Twilight movies by Jackson Rathbone, whose other best known role is Sokka in The Last Airbender from 2010. Considering how poorly received director M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action adaptation of the popular animated series was, I would say that we should give the actor another chance to bring a character with water-based powers to play on the big screen, such as the Spider-Man villain Hydro-Man.
Kellan Lutz - Sentry
You could argue Twilight’s Kellan Lutz has already played a Marvel character since the publisher did give Hercules his own comic book and Lutz played Zeus’ son in 2014’s The Legend of Hercules. However, that movie is not considered a career highlight for him, but some Marvel fans do believe the muscle-bound Emmett Cullen actor would make a great Sentry: a former meth addict who gained the power of a million exploding suns after ingesting a special serum.
Peter Facinelli - Purple Man
The patriarch of the Cullen Clan, Dr. Carlisle Cullen, is played by Peter Facinelli, who actually has played a comic book character before: Maxwell Lord on the Arrow-verse’s Supergirl series. Many comic book readers cite the Marvel equivalent of this power-hungry DC villain (whom Pedro Pascal played in Wonder Woman 1984) as Zebediah Kilgrave, who never became his aptly named alter ego Purple Man when David Tennant portrayed him on Jessica Jones. I’m not sure that otherwise acclaimed Netflix series is MCU still canon anyway and I bet Facinelli would not say no to giving Kilgrave a proper, purple portrayal.
Elizabeth Reaser - Invisible Woman
The matriarch of the Cullen Clan, Esme Cullen, is played by Elizabeth Reaser, who has played the motherly figure role many times (mostly in her collaborations with Mike Flanagan), but never as strongly as her Twilight movies character. A Marvel character widely noted as a strong motherly figure is Susan Richards (née Storm), also known as the force field-generating Invisible Woman when fighting with the Fantastic Four. All Reaser would need to better assume the role is some blonde hair dye.
Nikki Reed - Lilith Drake
The only member of the Twilight cast who later returned to the world of vampires is Nikki Reed, who would join the cast of the short-lived Netflix original series V Wars - which also starred her husband Ian Somerhalder of The Vampire Diaries fame. Well, it sounds to me like the actress really enjoys sharing the screen with bloodsuckers, playing a bloodsucker on screen, or living with one in real life, so maybe she would feel right at home if she was cast in a Marvel movie (Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot, perhaps?) as Dracula’s own daughter, Lilith Drake.
Anna Kendrick - Lady Deadpool
Fans have been pulling for Anna Kendrick (who played Bella’s friend Jessica Stanley in Twilight) to join the MCU as Squirrel Girl for years, but it might be just a little late for the actress to play a chipper, unbeatable superhero commonly depicted as a teenager. In fact, with her sharp wit, previous action movie experience, and the recent introduction of the Marvel multiverse, I think casting her as Lady Deadpool (a female, alternate reality counterpart to Ryan Reynolds’ “Merc with a Mouth”) would be an absolutely dynamite choice.
With how many veterans of the Twilight cast have already gone onto star in superhero movies, it may only a matter of time before all of time make their comic book character debuts. Let’s wait and see if any of our suggestions make the cut.
