Marvel Planning to Diversify the X-Men?
If you thought the female Silver Surfer that’s coming in The Fantastic Four: First Steps was the last of Marvel’s annoying sociopolitical statements in the MCU, you may be in for some disappointment when they get their new version of the X-Men into theaters. While the actors who played the X-Men and their mutant nemeses in the Fox films are all coming back in Avengers: Doomsday (a few have not officially been announced yet, but it’s a good bet that they’ll be back), a new X-Men movie has been in development since last May, with Michael Lesslie, who wrote The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and the excellent miniseries The Little Drummer Girl, penning the script and Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier all but confirmed to direct. While the movie is at least two years off, with all Marvel release slots booked up until Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027, Marvel is said to be fast-tracking X-Men (or whatever stupid title they think up; they have their work cut out for them if they want to out-lame The Fantastic Four: First Steps), and now that they’ve essentially got their creative team in place, they want to start casting the roles. And if recent reports are correct, they’re doing exactly what you probably expect they’ll do. On John Rocha’s podcast, The Hot Mic, scooper Jeff Sneider talked about who he’s heard Marvel wants for some of the big X-Men roles; you can watch watch the episode of The Hot Mic here or read what Sneider had to say below:
“I continue to hear black actors for Charles. I think that could be, especially with a white director because I really though there would be a black director on this. But I wonder if that’s the direction that Marvel wants to take, and to differentiate its Charles from the Patrick Stewart and the James McAvoy. Again, the rumor is that they want Denzel for Magneto, and so it would be interesting if they had a black counterpart as Charles. Colman Domingo is someone who I think is high on that list, if they go with an older Charles.”
“I continue to hear black actors for Charles.” That means they’re changing Charles Xavier’s race intentionally, not because they found someone who happened to be of a different race and was just so super-awesome-perfect that they had to cast him. Sneider says he thinks Marvel is doing this simply to differentiate their X-Men movies from the Fox ones, which I don’t believe for a second. They’re race-swapping Xavier and likely Magneto because it’s what they do now, but also because they have a ready-made defense: they’ll say that the X-Men were always a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement, and Xavier and Magneto were always supposed to be Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. While this has been debunked before, it would be immaterial even if it were true; as I’ve said, making Xavier and Magento black would eliminate the subtext and shake the audience until they understood the message, which is what most entertainment does today – and why so much of it doesn’t resonate. Moreover, there’s this insightful post from an X user called @XCoolDude69X (via X-Men ‘97 creator Beau DeMayo, who agreed with him):
That’s all I gotta say — oh, and that @MarvelStudios rush to get #Xmen into #AvengersDoomsday continues to suggest this studio has no respect or awareness for/of what the #xmen stand for beyond fan-pandering cameo-fodder to salvage 6 years of failed films by Feige and Co.… https://t.co/hwDQzrsr9m
— Beau DeMayo (@BeauDemayo) May 18, 2025
As for the actual name Sneider mentions, Colman Domingo… whatever. Unless this turns out to be wrong, I’m sure the actors won’t matter, just like all the good actors in Thunderbolts* didn’t matter. It’s important to note that Sneider said to take these names “with a grain of salt,” and he believes we’ll know at least some of the X-Men casting in the next few months; he also says that the source who told him this was the one who told him that Sadie Sink would be playing Jean Grey, which she’s clearly not. But again, I don’t think the names are nearly as important as the insight into what Marvel is doing with the X-Men. In fact, on the previous episode of The Hot Mic, Sneider said he’s heard that Trinity Bliss, who was in the last Avatar movie, is up for Jubilee. I’m not familiar with Trinity Bliss, but I looked her up, and she certainly looks right for Jubilee, partly because she’s young enough to be the kid of the group. It’s funny how Marvel isn’t trying to shake things up racially with Jubilee, though, huh? Almost as funny as John Rocha saying that Bliss “has the look” for Jubilee, which is only important sometimes – like for a marginal character like Jubilee and not two of the main characters like Xavier and Magneto. It also means Marvel suddenly isn’t going a different way, as Sneider suggested, because Jubilee was played by Asian actresses in the Fox X-Men movies.
I think the real litmus test for this will be The Fantastic Four: First Steps. If that movie bombs, and Marvel goes ahead with its diversifying of the X-Men characters, it’ll be proof positive that they’ll never learn because they don’t want to learn. They’ve already been told enough times that their audience doesn’t want this, and they’re still determined to shove it down everyone’s throat – which will be difficult if nobody shows up at theaters.
Let us know what you think of Marvel’s plan to diversify the X-Men in the comments!
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