Jennifer Lawrence Joins ‘X-Men: First Class’
While much attention has been given to Marvel Studios’ ramp up to production on Captain America: The First Avenger and the recasting of Spider-Man, 20th Century-Fox has been making great strides towards repopulating Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Students.
Production is slated to begin in early fall on X-Men: First Class, to be directed by Kick-Ass’ Matthew Vaughn. The latest casting caught our attention as the acclaimed Jennifer Lawrence has signed on to portray Mystique, the tortured shape-shifter. Lawrence is enjoying some of the notices of the year for her work in the independent film Winter’s Bone, currently in theaters. We first discovered her in The Burning Plain and suspect the model/actress will be a stand out in the new cast.
She joins a cast that already includes James MacAvoy as Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr (Magneto). The story will focus on the philosophical split between the old friends as the issue of mutants around the world becomes more than a scientific curiosity and political talking point.
With Magneto not quite a villain at this point, who will they fight? A character to be portrayed by Kevin Bacon, although his exact nature has fans speculating on his being everything from Arcade to Mister Sinister.
The other mutants to play prominent roles include Emma Frost to be played by the British beauty Alice Eve, Banshee, portrayed by Caleb Landry Jones (No Country for Old Men), Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man) as Henry “Beast” McCoy; and Lucas Till as Cyclops’ brother Havoc. Cyclops, though, has yet to be formally cast.
X-Men: First Class is being sandwiched in for a June 3, 2011 release, a month after the May 6 debut of Thor and Captain America, coming July 22. And of course, two weeks after the mutants return, Ryan Reynolds arrives as Green Lantern. If you thought this summer was a little dull, just wait for next year.
(Editorial note: Even though Clifford writes for us on occasion, this is written in his role as Gene Colan’s friend and occasional assistant.)
New York, NY – June 28, 2010 – Marvel Entertainment, LLC announced today that it has appointed Jeph Loeb as Executive Vice President, Head of Television, a newly created division of Marvel Entertainment. In this new role, Mr. Loeb will work alongside Dan Buckley, Publisher & President of the Print, Animation & Digital Divisions, Marvel Worldwide, Inc., to translate Marvel’s popular characters and stories to the television medium, in both live-action and animation formats. In addition to these responsibilities, Mr. Loeb will oversee the development and distribution of live-action, animated and direct-to-DVD series. Mr. Loeb was previously a Marvel-exclusive Eisner-Award-winning comic book writer and an Emmy-nominated writer for his work on NBC’s Heroes. The announcement was made today by Alan Fine, Executive Vice President, Office of the President and Chairman of Marvel Studios’ Creative Committee, and by Mr. Buckley, to whom Mr. Loeb will report.
Richard “Rik” Levins, a penciller for well over a hundred comic books, passed away June 12, 2010. He died peacefully at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. Levins was born on October 15, 1950, in Somerville, New Jersey. He is survived by his wife Sandra, nieces Robin and Lynn, nephew Robert, and great-nephews Kenneth and Johnathan.
Over the last few days there’s been a lot of interesting film casting going on so let’s review:
ComicMix congratulates Joe Quesada on his justly deserved promotion, recognizing the strides he has made in salvaging Marvel as a creative entity in the years since the company emerged from bankruptcy.
Tip of the hat to Yahoo! Movies for finding out our national hero, Captain America, will be filming his autobiography not amongst purple mountain’s majesty… 
Marvel’s super-heroes continue to dominate the headlines as 
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