Marvel Sets X-Men Reboot for May 5, 2028, and a New Professor X Rumor Emerges

The X-Men reboot leading Marvel's mutant saga is set for May 5, 2028, and it will not be alone that year. Along with that date, Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3 are also landing in 2028, marking a return to getting more than two Marvel movies in a single year.

X-Men Reboot Lands May 5, 2028, Kicking Off a Packed Year

With the breaking news that Kit Connor is playing Cyclops in the MCU, Variety ran coverage of that story and mentioned that the X-Men reboot he has been cast for will be the first film leading off the mutant saga after Avengers: Secret Wars and Avengers: Doomsday. That places it in 2028 alongside Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3, meaning we are returning to the days of getting more than two Marvel movies in a single year.

There were already three dates on the Marvel Studios calendar, two of which were placeholders for 2028: May 5, 2028, July 28, 2028, and December 15, 2028. We already had confirmation that December 15 is Black Panther 3 with Ryan Coogler, since Marvel told us it is coming at the end of the year. So per Variety's confirmation, X-Men will be coming out May 5, 2028, which leaves Ghost Rider to July 28, 2028.

That July slot puts Ghost Rider in the same release window where Deadpool and Wolverine landed, and it will be up to Shawn Levy to try to recapture some of that magic. With Black Panther 3, Ghost Rider, and the X-Men reboot all mapped out, we can basically put that entire 2028 slate together.

Casting Kit Connor as Cyclops Signals Marvel Is Learning From Its Mistakes

I have made sure to enumerate multiple times the exact mistakes Marvel Studios made leaving the Infinity Saga and coming into the Multiverse Saga, and how they could look to correct that. It looks like Avengers: Secret Wars is going to be the reboot point instead of waiting until after Secret Wars, and in order to maintain excitement and give us major point of view characters we will revisit throughout the saga, they are giving us the X-Men reboot right out of the gate. "I think this is an excellent decision," because the hype should be at an all time high coming off Secret Wars, and the last thing you want is a singular character movie like Ghost Rider with no immediate connections to what we just saw.

I will put an asterisk by that, because I do believe Ryan Gosling's Ghost Rider will show up in Avengers: Secret Wars alongside some of these X-Men characters and the new Black Panther. Knowing that Marvel has a huge burden to nail the end of the Multiverse Saga and go into the Mutant Saga without the same drop off that happened between Infinity and Multiverse, coming out of the gate with the X-Men film, the thing everybody wants to see, tells me they are learning from those mistakes and are confident in this movie following something like Secret Wars.

It was heavily rumored that the Russos were sticking around after Secret Wars to loosely oversee what projects were going on, so that if they do two more Avengers films down the line, they would not be stuck tying together pieces from projects they had nothing to do with. Whether or not that is exactly true, only time will tell, but it speaks to Marvel working on the infrastructure of these stories with a lot more forethought than was obviously the case during the Multiverse Saga, when they arguably got rushed by Bob Chapek pushing for 20 Disney Plus projects and three movies a year.

If you have listened to some of Kevin Feige's recent quotes, he has indicated Marvel has a plan for the next 16 years through 2042, and referred to the X-Men themselves as a "multi-stage saga." That is why I love that they are leading out of the gate with Secret Wars, the most hyped thing they can do, and introducing characters like Kit Connor's Cyclops who will be our eyes and ears through the next 15 or 20 years of the MCU.

Professor X Casting Rumor: Neither of the Two Previously Rumored Actors, According to Daniel RPK

There have been two names at the forefront of the Professor X casting conversation for weeks now, mostly from industry insiders like Jeff Sneider who are in the know: Tom Pelphrey and another actor whose name has circulated alongside his. Those have really been the only two names we've heard that have been in the running.

According to Daniel RPK, breaking within the last couple of hours in an update he issued, he said it sounds like Marvel has cast an actor as Xavier, but it is neither Tom Pelphrey nor the other actor who has been rumored for the role. So there is a new actor in the mix for the role who has not been rumored recently, and who apparently has been cast as Xavier.

Why the Insiders Keep Missing Names Before the Trades Break Them

Not a lot of people had Kit Connor. A couple of industry insiders or Twitter scoopsters brought his name up weeks ago, but not many people were talking about him before he came out of the woodwork. I will also mention that no one brought up Samara Weaving for Emma Frost. So there may be a possibility that a lot of these actors and actresses, the ones who officially did their screen tests in early July, meaning they have been in this process for a while, simply have not been mentioned yet by industry insiders.

We joke about Hollywood being small and everybody knowing everybody, and it truly is that way for anyone who has worked in the industry. That is how Deadline gets Samara Weaving and Kit Connor as scoops. That is how Jeff Sneider knew Sadie Sink was in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and was Jean Grey literally before anybody else. The point I am mostly making is that we might not yet know who is being cast for some of these characters.

I quite honestly had not heard Kit Connor's name one time related to Cyclops or anyone in the MCU, and I am not real familiar with his work. But as young as they are casting right now, a lot of these actors and actresses will not have a lot of work behind them unless they were child actors, and I really like that they are taking an approach of bringing in fresh faces with younger actors who can grow into the role. "So far, so good."

Who do you think Marvel has actually cast as Professor X, if it is not Tom Pelphrey or the other rumored name?