Just as the X-Men are having a lot of trouble keeping track of all the vampires in the world, I have to say I’m having the hardest keeping track of where X-MEN: FIRST CLASS’ casting stands in all the conflicting reports from EW, Deadline and AICN. Keep in mind that Fox has only made official announcements about Xavier, Magneto and Emma Frost, so far. They’re probably saving a mega reveal of all the kids’ actors for Comic Con (which is rapidly approaching, holy crap!) And this might all actually be a lot of smoke and mirrors, because EW’s source is even saying that Fox could be circulating some bogus character names to make sure fans will still be surprised by who actually shows up in FIRST CLASS when it finally hits. I can definitely see that - - studios’ marketing teams have gotten a lot more savy about handling the internet rumor mill.
There’s a lot to wade through, here, so I’ll simplify for everybody… == TEASER ==
- Caleb Landry Jones is, indeed, playing Banshee, as we reported last week.
- Nicholas Hoult is replacing Benjammin Walker to play Beast. This young British actor’s best known for playing the titular character in ABOUT A BOY, and he was also just recently in CLASH OF THE TITANS as Eusebios.
- Despite reports that he’ll be playing Cyclops, Aaron Johnson will not be appearing in FIRST CLASS at all.
- Cyclops’ lil’ brother, Havok, however, will be appearing in the movie and he’ll be played by Lucas Till, who’s been charming tweenie girls as the love interest in HANNAH MONTANA THE MOVIE and one of the big Taylor Swift music videos.
Phew! Does that square it for everybody?
I’ll be curious to see how they end up rendering Havok’s signature plasma powers, since the whole “concentric circles pattern" seems like it'd work better in a drawing than live action.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. HYBRID BASTARDS! is available here and UNIMAGINABLE is available here for pre-order on Amazon.com.