Director Bryan Singer is slowly completing the casting of the upcoming “X-Men: Apocalypse” with his announcement on February 19 that teenage actor Kodi Smit-McPhee will play the young mutant Nightcrawler in the movie.
Singer made the latest announcement via his Instagram account and it follows his early announcement made in January about the casting of the three actors to play the young version of Jean Grey, Storm and Cyclops also on Instagram.
The 18-year-old Smit-McPhee has had several film credits to his name including “The Road,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Young Ones,” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” details Yahoo! News.
Singer has been planning and wanting to include the mutant Nightcrawler since 2013. He could have inserted the character in last year’s “X-Men: Days of the Future Past,” but was not able to eventually.
He just made sure this time that Nightcrawler will be part of “X-Men: Apocalypse,” which is due to hit theaters on May 27, 2016. Shooting for the movie is already set this coming April.
Completing the young cast
The announcement of Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler comes more than three weeks after Singer also announced the casting of Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, and Tye Sheridan as Cyclops,
Turner, Shipp and Sheridan will be playing the younger versions of the hero mutants previously played in early X-Men movies by Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, and James Marsden, respectively.
Smit-McPhee on the other hand will be playing the younger version of Nightcrawler that was previously played by Allan Cummings on “X-Men 2.”
The addition of Turner, Shipp, Sheridan and now McPhee is consistent with the ‘throwback’ premise of “X-Men: Apocalypse” as previously reported.
It has been said before that “X-Men: Apocalypse” shall have a 1980s setting and as such, there will likely be changes in the appearance of casts of characters from the original X-Men trilogy.
Conclusion to the trilogy
“X-Men: Apocalypse” is said to be the concluding entry to the trilogy that was started by “X-Men: First Class” in 2011 and followed up by “X-Men: Days of the Future Past” released just last year.
The actors who were confirmed for the casting were actually younger versions of the mutants that appeared in previous X-Men films.
There’s Jennifer Lawrence who shall be playing the role of form-changing Raven also known as Mystique, Evan Peters as Quicksilver and Peter if he’s not mutating, Chaning Tatum as the card-carrying mutant known as Gambit and Remy LeBeau if he’s not in his extra ordinary self, Michael Fassbender as Magneto or Erik Lensherr if he’s not in his mutant form, James McAvoy as Charles Xavier also known as Professor X, and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy or the mutant Beast when he changes form.
Oscar Isaac will be playing the role of En Sabah Nur who is also the mutant Apocalypse, the foremost villain of the movie.
The character of Wolverine has not been included in the film as it was only during the latter part of the story when Professor X already had the school for mutants that they came across the mutant with blades in his hands and has the ability to quickly heal.