Kit Connor Eyed for Cyclops in Marvel's X-Men Reboot, Deadline Reports

Deadline is reporting that Cyclops has been cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with sources telling the trade that Kit Connor is Marvel Studios' choice for the mutant hero. This comes just a week after Deadline broke the news that the actor cast as Emma Frost would be taking over the role in the upcoming X-Men reboot.

Deadline's sources name Kit Connor as Marvel's choice for Scott Summers

The story ran under the headline "X-Men: Kit Connor Eyed for Cyclops Role in Upcoming Marvel Studios Pic." Deadline wrote, "Exclusive after the news that Samara Weaving was in line for the Emma Frost role in the upcoming X-Men. And now it looks like Marvel Studios has found its Scott Summers as sources tell Deadline Kit Connor is their choice for the mutant Cyclops."

According to that reporting, the film's director and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige met with a number of candidates for the role, similar to how the Weaving casting played out, and sources say the studio has landed on Connor as the latest actor to put on the Cyclops visor. Deadline also noted that Marvel and reps for Connor could not be reached for comment on the casting.

Why a casting this big does not stay secret

Of course they couldn't be reached for comment. This is something Marvel Studios would love to keep under wraps, but when it comes to castings this size there are just too many working parts in the industry. Too many agents, too many agencies, too many people know as soon as it happens, and it only takes one person telling a friend or a source who knows someone in the industry for it to get back to Deadline, the Hollywood Reporter, or Variety.

It was the same with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby's castings, which is why I've always said that if you just wait for the trades to break the names, you're going to know who the team is.

A D23 presentation could be where the cast gets unveiled

There might be a presentation coming up that some have pointed to as the place this X-Men casting gets unveiled. About a week and a half ago, industry insider Daniel RPK said they were looking to rush to get this done. I took that to mean not rushing the casting itself, but rushing to get the contracts signed, since we know from the earlier Deadline article on Samara Weaving that they went through screen tests for a number of these characters back in July.

A screen test is not something you do first, it's something you do at the end of the auditioning process, which means casting had actually been going on since the end of May and the beginning of June. Credit to Twitter scoopsters like Apocalyptic Horsemen and The Beyond Reporter, who had been talking about this for a while and brought up names like Kit Connor. They were right on the money.

So when you hear the word "rush" from Daniel RPK, that may relate to locking these actors under contract in time for Disney's D23, which has been getting a bigger presentation year on year. There's a reason Kevin Feige didn't bring up the X-Men at all at San Diego Comic-Con, to a lot of our shock, and I think that's because they wanted to save the announcement for D23.

So relax, they're not rushing to cast the film. They've already been working on it for 60 to 90 days, probably the better part of six months, taking tapes from different agencies and going through different actors. They're just rushing now to finalize the process. Given that Daniel RPK flagged this two weeks ago and we're now getting casting after casting from Deadline, there's a shot they could drop a majority of the cast at D23, though even a small X-Men team requires a lot of scheduling that would already be locked in by now.

The age pattern points to a young X-Men team built for the long haul

The earliest rumors said Marvel was looking to cast the X-Men much younger, with fresher faces so the actors can grow into the roles over the next two decades. Samara Weaving is 34, Sadie Sink is 24, and Kit Connor is 22. That lines up with having two core original X-Men members, Scott Summers and Jean Grey, played by actors in their early 20s in real life. If Marvel gets these castings right and there are no recasts down the line, these are characters we're going to be with for a long time.

Sarah Finn's track record and the lesson from Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards

Sarah Finn is the casting director, and she's been there since the original casting of Robert Downey Jr. in 2008. Historically the MCU has done a great job getting the right people into the right roles, and when they do, it's magical, no pun intended, since it is Disney, but it literally is.

The problem is when they miss. I'm not a huge fan of Pedro Pascal in the role, and I think he needs more of the self-confidence he brought to the Red Viper on Game of Thrones than what we saw in the initial Fantastic Four movie. I still have faith he can pull it together. When you get the right actor in the right role, it makes the verisimilitude of what you're watching so much easier, meaning your ability to believe what's on screen. When Robert Downey Jr. played Tony Stark or Chris Evans played Captain America, they nailed it so completely that it felt like we were watching the character, and that's why there's so much pressure on Marvel to get these X-Men castings right, since these actors and characters will be around for decades.

So far the castings have me won over

So far I've loved the castings. I think Samara Weaving is going to be an excellent Emma Frost. If Adam Driver is truly playing Nathaniel Essex, actually playing Mr. Sinister, I think that's a perfect casting, though I don't know if I'd love him as Magneto, but I'd definitely come around to it. Sadie Sink absolutely killed it as Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I hadn't watched a lot of Stranger Things, so I wasn't as familiar with her work, but she's a heck of an actress and she's going to be an awesome Jean Grey.

I'm already in, though there's some natural anxiousness given the misstep with Pedro Pascal, where I really don't read him as Reed Richards. It's looking more and more like we could get some kind of casting announcement next weekend, which would be exciting.

How many of you are familiar with Kit Connor's work, and do you think he's the right choice to play Cyclops?