X-Men Reboot Casting Update: Marvel Reportedly Still Hunting Three More Mutant Roles

Marvel Studios does not appear to be finished casting its X-Men reboot. According to a new update from industry insider Daniel Richtman, the studio is still looking to fill a handful of additional roles beyond the original lineup, and based on the limited descriptions he gave, I think we can narrow down exactly which characters they may be.

This comes on top of previous reporting that Beast and Iceman may be cast very shortly, with announcements possibly coming soon. If you have missed those earlier updates on the main team, that reporting is still developing alongside this new information about supporting characters.

Daniel Richtman's update names three specific roles still being cast

According to industry insider Daniel Richtman, speaking about the MCU's X-Men, "they are still looking to cast a few more roles, including a female role that will have a small part in the first film and a larger role in the sequel. A male person of color role who will either be Native American in a supporting role and an Asian female supporting role."

Even though the casting so far seems to be building toward the original lineup, characters who do not join the X-Men until much later, like Rogue and Storm, are already reportedly in the mix. Based on everything already known about the movie, it looks like the film may start with the original lineup while having a lot more mutants already enrolled at Xavier's Gifted Youngsters institute, ready to step up to the team, possibly even during the movie itself. Rogue, for instance, probably will not already be an X-Man when we are first introduced to her.

The small female role growing into a larger part could point to Polaris

Looking at the order characters were historically added to the X-Men after the original lineup, Mimic and Changeling came first, but the first female character added after that original team was Polaris. That is the kind of character I could see being cast in a small female role for this movie, not especially consequential to what is going on in this first film, but then growing into a much larger role in the sequel, similar to how she actually joined the team after the original lineup.

The Native American role sounds more like Forge than Warpath

When people hear "Native American" in the X-Men context, it is easy to jump straight to Forge, but there are other Native American characters in the X-Men orbit, like Warpath. The difference is that Warpath has always been more of an X-Force character, while Forge feels far more consequential to the core X-Men storyline. I would not be surprised at all if Forge is the character Richtman is alluding to here.

The Asian female role is harder to pin down, but Jubilee is a possibility

This last one is tougher to call, and to be clear, this is speculation. We are not even sure any of these three roles belong to key mutants or eventual team members. Since the female role was described as growing into a larger part in the sequel, that suggests someone who shows up at the school first and joins the team afterward. Given some of the more obvious Asian character inclusions in X-Men lore for female roles, it makes me wonder if the character being described here is not Jubilee.

Marvel appears to be expanding the X-Men universe right from the first film

Taking this update as a whole, on top of everyone already confirmed for the team, it feels like Marvel is looking to expand the X-Men universe significantly in this first film and introduce a large number of new mutants right out of the gate rather than sticking strictly to the original roster.

That raises an obvious question: how is that setup going to work in a version of the main MCU timeline, the 616, that has never had any mutants before? The likely answer points to Avengers: Secret Wars and the remaking of the multiverse into a singular timeline. That reset would be the reason all these mutants suddenly appear on the scene, but Marvel Studios will still need to come up with some kind of explainer for where they have been all along.

The snap and the blip may be part of Marvel's explanation, but it has a contradiction

One possibility is that these mutants have already been around, hiding in plain sight because they know they are different but do not want to reveal it. Marvel has previously looked to the snap and the blip as a source of radiation that may have pushed forward what the franchise has called "children of the atom," unlocking a mutant gene that might have been latent in a number of heroes.

But there is a problem with that explanation. After the snap and the blip, Ms. Marvel did not unlock her mutant gene through that event, yet it was later revealed that she is a mutant, without gaining any new powers at that point. So there is clearly some explaining still to come for why mutants are suddenly prevalent among humanity in the MCU, even though that snap and blip theory still seems to be the direction Marvel Studios is leaning toward.

Already-established mutants suggest they were hidden, not newly created

There is already evidence of mutants existing in the 616 before Doomsday and before Avengers: Secret Wars, even without cultural awareness of them. They simply have not been part of public discussion and are not prevalent in society the way they are expected to be once the X-Men film arrives. Emma Frost and Professor X being cast as already-powerful mutants supports this, since characters like them are going to have been using their powers for quite some time.

That suggests Marvel does not need a case-by-case explanation for every mutant, walking through what Storm was doing or what Emma Frost has been doing individually. Instead, after the timeline is remade, they can simply explain how these characters got folded into the new reality and move forward from there, since these are not people waking up with mutant powers for the first time as adults.

There may not be enough room to explain all of this before the X-Men film itself

I am very curious how Marvel plans on approaching this, especially in the X-Men reboot, because there does not seem to be enough time to start addressing it within Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Those films already have plenty of story to get through with Doctor Doom and the multiverse, so there is no obvious reason to start explaining mutant origin stories there. That explanation should be implied by the end of how Secret Wars plays out, and then possibly explained further right at the start of the X-Men film.

Based on this description, who do you think these three characters could be, and which mutants would you introduce early on as side or adjacent characters in this first film?