When Alice Eve entered talks for the substantial Emma Frost role in the soon to be shooting X-Men: First Class and we subsequently heard no denials, nor any word of other thesps in the running – we just kinda assumed she had won the gig. I mean it’s been over six weeks since the announcement – so she must have still been in contention until recently otherwise why would Eves’ reps or Fox let us carry on the charade of reporting her attachment?
Deadline say Eve was never officially on board and that Matthew Vaughn has just signed up January Jones, she of Mad Men fame. Reports that the Frost part is basically an older student who comes between Xavier and Lehnsherr can probably be tripled now as Jones is 32 (Eve was 28) – and her age is smack right in the middle of James McAvoy’s (31) and Michael Fassbender’s (33).
I like Jones, she’s got a look from a different era of actresses’. The look of a Woody Allen lead from the 70′s, or a Michelangelo Antonioni actress from the decade previous. She may not be as likeable as Eve’s big smile and big-breasted blonde with a heart but I was worried Eve wouldn’t be able to play the bitchy side of Frost. She could do the charm and the seducing but could she be the damn right vindictive character she really is?
There’s another big casting Vaughn has knocked off the checklist today also as he has seemingly found his Storm. We think, anyway…
Mike Fleming sent the comic book websphere into a state of shock earlier by announcing Zoe Kravitz, son of rocker legend Lenny, had been cast as Angel.
But there’s no need to dispare because it’s obvious her character won’t be the feathered hero played by Ben Foster in X-Men 3: The Last Stand and the X-hero who dates back to the original X-Men team as a white male – has not had a gender change. Instead she’s more likely to be Angel Salvadore – aka Tempest – created just ten years ago by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Schiver – she has abilities akin to the a common housefly.
And yet, Tempest basically means ‘violent windstorm‘ right? So after a few swings and round-a-bouts, she is probably playing Storm herself, right? Who thinks Matthew Vaughn is playing tricks on us via Fleming (I’m still 50/50 as to whether Lucas Till is actually playing Cyclops and not his brother Havok).
Kravitz has only been acting three years and has had bit parts in numerous amounts of Hollywood movies, and she would have been shooting Mad Max: Fury Road right now if that project hadn’t been delayed.
More additions: The kid from Son of Rambow (Bill Milner) will play an even younger Magneto in presumably Auschwitz flashbacks, Morgan Lilly will play an even younger Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence has the twenty something version locked down)
I’ve updated the cast a few times this week so I won’t do it here, other than to say it’s getting rather large and substantial. And the rate of additions that Vaughn is adding right now, we could have an epic sized cast by Monday (Fleming says Monday production begins, though we heard shooting isn’t set until September 6th).
Want to write about the stuff you're passionate about and have your work read by an audience of over 10 million a month? Click here to become a contributor.
2 Comments
The way these casting choices are being announced I think what’s happening is that the script isn’t done yet and they’re filling parts as the pages get done.
Vaughn and his can’t-write crew from Kick-Ass probably came in, decided they didn’t like the original script and wanted to “improve” it, and this is the sad result.
And if the casting is any indication of the script itself –which obviously it is!– it looks like one gigantic jumbled mess. It’s overpopulated, the same complaint people had about Spider-Man 3. Now if this army of characters are mostly only going to be cameos then why on earth even announce them?
This isn’t a story, it’s a smorgasbord of characters thrown in most likely to give the SFX department an excuse to do some razzle-dazzle CGI. There’s no way you can take all these characters and make a coherent story out of them.
I mean, I expect Xavier and Magneto to be JUST MASTERING their own mutant powers by their early thirties, not be opening a friggin school! And considering that Patrick Stewart –de-aged thru CGI– was shown as taking in Scott Summers in Wolverine this just destroys what little continuity they had established. And for what? So a whiny, unmanly James McAvoy and a sneers-too-damned-much Fassbender can be the leads? Epic miscasting!
And while January Jones is the right age and look to play Emma Frost there’s nothing about her that says “cold or calculating.” And what, is she going to be in some love triangle between Xavier and Magneto? LAME!
Like I’ve been saying since the moment this project was announced, this will undoubtedbly be the WORST X-Men film. All we can do now is chronicle this fiasco to it’s disastrous theatrical opening and pray that after this Fox starts to question whether or not they can squeeze any more profit out of the franchise they wrecked, and hopefully decides to sell it back to Marvel.
Hey, it worked with Punisher.
Somebody please tell these bozo producers and directors to stop!
Stop changing genders, races, back stories, time lines and for the golden age of comic book’s sake leave the dead Dead! If I wanted that kind of loopyness I’d watch the soap operas where everyone has an evil twin, everything was a dream sequence, everybody suffers amnesia or some other shlock. I don’t care what anyone says about artistic license, interpretation or making the characters and the film their own, the only reason these films make money is because of the fan base that the comics have held and I’m getting to the point that I don’t want to bother with them.