X-Men: First Class has its first cast member, James McAvoy. The news comes from 20th Century Fox (via Coming Soon) and confirms that deals have finally closed and McAvoy is locked in for the role of Charles Xavier. Nope, he’s not Professor X just yet.
First Class takes pace way before the days of the fist X-Men film, a time during which Xavier and Erik Lensherr were just two young guys first discovering their abilities. Xavier, Erik and a group of other mutants, some you may recognize, join forces to stop an evil force. It’s during that time Xavier and Erik have a falling out and so the battle between Magneto and Professor X begins.
McAvoy is clearly a talented guy with impressive work under his belt including Wanted and Atonement. Now the question is, who’s going to play his pal turned adversary? For some reason I’m thinking Clive Owen, but he may be a bit old for the part. Odds are we won’t have much time to speculate because director Matthew Vaughn’s summer start state demands the cast to be sorted out fairly soon. Fox even mentions that additional casting is happening at the moment and the final decisions will be revealed in the near future.
By Perri Nemiroff
