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…
Originally published April 1, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
