Recasting 2000's X-Men In 2020 | Screen Rant
The first X-Men movie hit theaters in 2000, but who would be cast in the Marvel team superhero film if it was made in 2020? The X-Men have been a staple of Marvel Comics for decades, and their importance with Marvel continued on the big screen. At the beginning of the millennium, 20th Century Fox made the first X-Men movie. The film was directed by Bryan Signer and proved to be a huge moment in rejuvenating comic book movie adaptations.
2000's X-Men was a hit with critics and general audiences upon its release, grossing nearly $300 million worldwide. The movie's large cast featured a mix of known stars and fresh faces. This was where audiences first met Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, a role that came to define his career and the X-Men franchise as a whole for decades to come. Fox brought Patrick Stewart aboard to play Professor X and lead an X-Men team featuring Cyclops (James Marsden), Storm (Halle Berry), and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). X-Men's story also gave Rogue (Anna Paquin) a prominent role. On the villain side, Ian McKellen played Magneto and Rebecca Romijn played Mystique.
The core cast of X-Men returned to star in two direct sequels, but the franchise branched off in many ways after. Stewart's Professor X and Jackman's Wolverine starred in several other movies, including the unofficial swan song to the original era with Logan. Most of the cast returned years after the first trilogy ended to be involved in X-Men: Days of Future Past's time travel story. Many of the actors, they turned in memorable performances as the Marvel characters, but that doesn't mean they are irreplaceable.
Marvel Studios is currently working to reboot the X-Men as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans have spent the last few years sharing fan-casts for who could work well as different X-Men characters in the MCU, but what if that wasn't the case? What if X-Men wasn't made in 2000, but in 2020 instead? There are a lot of reasons why the movie would look different, starting with a brand new cast. Here's who Fox might cast if X-Men was being made twenty years later.
Replacing Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is no easy task, but Aidan Turner fits the mold for what X-Men could need in 2020. At 37 years old, he is slightly older than Jackman was when he got his breakout role, but Turner is 3 inches shorter, bringing him slightly closer to matching Wolverine's short build in the comics. Turner is far from a household name, so most audiences would be able to see him as Wolverine instead of one of his past characters. That said, he also has experience with blockbusters already thanks to The Hobbit trilogy, where he played Kili, which could be beneficial when stepping into the leading role of X-Men.
Bryce Dallas Howard could be a good choice to play Jean Grey. She's the right age to play the role, but a much bigger star at this stage in her career than Janssen was. Howard has played a Marvel character before as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3, but she hasn't had the chance to be a superhero yet. Instead, Howard has helped lead the Jurassic World franchise. Throughout her career, she has shown the range necessary to play Jean Grey in X-Men and the franchise that would follow, including the inevitable turn in a Dark Phoenix Saga adaptation.
Jensen Ackles has spent the last fifteen years leading Supernatural, but now we think he could slide into the role of Cyclops. Ackles is only a few years younger than Marsden in real life, so his casting would present X-Men with the chance to get someone to play a more mature Scott Summers. As the leader of the X-Men team, having someone like Ackles take charge is believable. It is easy to see him and Howard having chemistry too, which could help sell the Scott and Jean romance better than past iterations. With Ackles already lined up to play a superhero leader in The Boys season 3 as Soldier Boy, Ackles' case as a fan-favorite choice to play Cyclops could continue to grow.
To take over the role made famous by Halle Berry, we're nominating Sonequa Martin-Green to play Ororo Munroe in X-Men. Martin-Green is a rising star in Hollywood at the moment who has had great success on the small screen. She spent most of the 2010s playing Sasha Williams on The Walking Dead and currently stars as Michael Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery. This has given her a lot of experience with beloved properties and taking on major roles, both of which would come help her play Storm. She's also no stranger to playing an authority figure, so her screen presence would go a long way in establishing Storm as a force to be reckoned with.
Hugh Laurie is our choice to take over the role of Charles Xavier if X-Men was recast in 2020. Like Martin-Green, Laurie has had quite a successful career on television. He is best known for playing Dr. Gregory House on House. Laurie has since starred in The Night Manager, Veep, and HBO's recent series Avenue 5. He might not be a traditional pick to replicate the version of Professor X that Patrick Stewart played, but Laurie could help show a bit of Xavier's darker side to blur the lines between his strategy with mutants and that of Magneto.
Speaking of Magneto, Christoph Waltz would be an excellent choice to step into the role for a 2020 X-Men movie. Waltz's breakout performance came as German colonel Hans Landa in Inglorious Bastards, and he's found a knack for playing menacing villains since. He previously played the major Bond villain Blofeld in Spectre and will return as the character for No Time To Die. Waltz has also played good guys in Django Unchained and those with a bit more grey like Dr. Dyson Ido in Alita: Battle Angel. If Laurie's casting brings out more of Professor X's darkness, Waltz could be used to give Magneto an extra layer of charm and sympathy.
Finally, we're going with Kaya Scodelario to play Rogue. Scodelario ten years older than Paquin was when she first played Rogue, so her casting might make the character skew a bit older, but that shouldn't matter too much. If anything, it would take a small rewrite to make Rogue be a college-aged young adult instead of a high schooler. But, casting Scodelario would give X-Men a talented actress who can hold her own opposite the rest of the cast. She's already got experience with blockbusters from the Maze Runner trilogy and appearing in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and she's set to lead a Resident Evil reboot as Claire Redfield. Casting someone with a bit more experience like Scodelario could help Rogue remain a key part of the franchise going forward.