To me, my X-Men!! Marvel Studios has officially announced the cast of its upcoming X-Men reboot directed by Jake Schreier. The reveal was made at D23, Disney’s own personal Comic-Con, where loads of Marvel and Star Wars-related news has already dropped, and confirmed the film will hit theaters on May 5th 2028.
So, along with the previous announcements of Kit Connor as Scott Summers/Cyclops, and Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, the X-Men will include Christopher Abbott as Professsor Charles Xavier, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, Maya Boyd as Ororo Munroe/Storm, and Adam Driver as Nathaniel Essex aka Mister Sinister.
Abbott takes on a role previously played spectacularly by Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy, so he’s got pretty big shoes to fill. Xavier is the “father” of all mutants, and the Omega-level telepath who formed the X-Men.
Driver, in his first major Disney role since Star Wars, takes on Mister Sinister, a master geneticist with a wide range of powers, possibile immortality, and an obsession with the Summers bloodline. The character was teased heavily in X-Men: Days of Future Past, with never got his full on-screen debut.
Abbott and Driver are a lot a like in the approach to their careers. They both were co-stars, playing best friends, on the HBO series Girls. They have both largely avoided the spotlight, preferring to work in smaller films and only occasionally branching out to larger franchises. For Abbott, he recently starred in Universal’s failed Wolf Man reboot and Sony’s Kraven the Hunter.
Speaking of Obsession, Navarrette was the breakout star of that $400M-grossing horror sensation. She takes on the role of Rogue, memorably played by Anna Paquin in the Fox movies. Rogue was an orphan taken in by the villain Mystique. She has the ability to drain the powers, memories, emotions of anyone she touches.
Boyd, a theatre actress and a former contestant on America’s Got Talent, takes on the role of Storm, previously played by Halle Berry and Alexandra Shipp. This will be her big-screen feature debut. Storm has control of the weather, a power that has seen her looked upon as a god to the people of Africa. She grew up as a pickpocket in Cairo, but grew up to become, arguably, the X-Men’s most consistent leader.
Along with Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, introduced in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the X-Men is clearly going for a youth movement, as it should.
Schreier earned strong reviews for his work on Thunderbolts, and has been entrusted with the keys to X-Men. If done right, it should be the next major narrative driving force of the MCU, similar to The Avengers in previous phases. Michael Lesslie wrote the initital script, but it has since been taken over by Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear writer Joanna Calo.
