New “X-Men” Is A ‘Big Swing’ For Marvel

In a new update, scooper Jeff Sneider indicates he’s heard that “Riverdale,” “May December ” and “Beef” star Charles Melton is up for the role of Hank McCoy, aka Beast, in Marvel Studios’ “X-Men” film.

Sneider adds: “Others are still in the mix, such as ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ star Peter Claffey, while even more actors are still waiting to read for the plum part.”

The update comes as the film’s writer and “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin recently talked about how writing the new film differs from his and filmmaker Jake Schreier’s time on “Thunderbolts*” together.

Speaking with Deadline, he says the new film has far less restrictions as it doesn’t need to fit into pre-existing storylines and characters as much as “Thunderbolts*” did:

“I’d say there were actually more parameters on Thunderbolts because it was plugging into an existing arc and existing characters, whereas with X-Men, Kevin [Feige] just wants to take a big swing and start anew, not be beholden to any of the movies that have come before.

And Jake Schreier has such a clear vision in terms of wanting to get back to character first, and to what is exciting about those early [Chris] Claremont-run comics, which was all about team dynamics. There were a lot of soapy elements to those comics. We’ve been in the room every day together. Kevin and Louis [D’Esposito] are so dialled in, and they have such incredible instincts that it’s been fun to just blue-sky.”

As a lifelong fan of the X-Men, Lee also spoke about what it’s like to work on the project:

“I’m such a big fan of that IP of the comics. My dad and I, every Saturday morning, used to watch the show on television, so to be able to look around this Marvel conference room and have every X-Men character on the board and be able to spitball and freestyle on, ‘What about this person?’ It’s so emboldening because you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, this isn’t going to be a safe movie. This is actually going to be a really exciting new take.’.. [I’m] trying to look at my childhood self, who loved these characters so much, and making sure we’re doing right by him and all the other fans that love X-Men.”

The film doesn’t have a release date, but is rumoured to begin shooting towards year’s end for a 2028 debut.

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