It looks like casting may be underway on 20th Century Fox’s latest X-Men spinoff New Mutants, with HitFix reporting that Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) have signed on to appear in the Josh Boone-directed project.
According to the site, Williams will portray the character of Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, with Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin/Magik. They will reportedly by joined by Alexandra Shipp, who will reprise the role of Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse, while James McAvoy’s Professor X will also play a “significant role.”
The news follows comments from producer Simon Kinberg, who confirmed to IGN that we’ll be seeing some familiar faces in the spinoff: “Traditionally, the New Mutants have some characters that cross over from the mainline X-Men movies. As we are going, I would say it’s likely that you will see some familiar faces.”
Kinberg also went on to state that New Mutants will have a “Young Adult vibe” to it: “Josh Boone and his writing partner are working on the script. They’re doing a really nice job of it, and it’s a really cool one, because in many ways, like Deadpool was so different from the mainline X-Men movies, New Mutants… It’s maybe not as different as Deadpool, but it has its own unique, original voice to it. That’s the fun for me, working in the X-Men universe, creating these sort of standalone movies that have a different vibe to them. And New Mutants has more of a YA [Young Adult] vibe to it.”
UPDATE: According to Nerdist, a Fox representative has said that the casting rumours are “not true.”
Are you looking forward to a YA New Mutants? And what do you make of the casting choices, assuming the rumour is accurate? Let us know in the comments below…