CONFIRMED: Aaron Johnson NOT in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

It looks like Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) won’t be trading in his batons for an optic visor.  Movieweb reports that contrary to early rumors, Johnson will not play Cyclops or any other role in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class.  As late as a month ago, AICN was reporting that Johnson was a “done deal” to play the role.  But the following day, EW said that Johnson wasn’t in the movie, period.  Speaking to Movieweb, producer Tarquin Pack debunked the rumor:

Nothing you don’t know about, yeah. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers about Aaron, unfortunately. Aaron’s kind of busy, yeah.

Basically, it looks like at one point Johnson was very close to having the part and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.  As for “Aaron’s kind of busy”, The Playlist reports that Johnson recently became a first-time father (the actor was also reportedly in the running to play Spider-Man before Andrew Garfield got the gig).  Hit the jump for the current casting break-down for X-Men: First Class.

Here’s the confirmed casting:

• James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier
• Michael Fassbender as Magneto
• Nicholas Hoult as Beast
• Alice Eve as Emma Frost
• Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee
• Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique
• Kevin Bacon as the villain (rumored to be Sebastian Shaw)
• Edi Gathegi as Darwin

And as for rumored casting:

• Rosamund Pike as Moira MacTaggart
• Lucas Till as Havok

The characters “Multiple Man” and “Willow” are also rumored to be in the film.  If there are misdirects among the roles, I would believe these would fall into that category.  It’s either that or (hopefully) they’re background characters like Kitty Pride/Shadowcat in the first two X-Men movies.