It's official, folks. Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams and Split star Anya Taylor-Joy are joining the X-Men universe for Josh Boone's New Mutants. If this sounds familiar, that'd be because word of the casting first broke last year, in March 2016, when we learned that Boone had set his sights on the young actresses to play Wolfsbane and Magik, respectively. Now that Boone's YA-style superhero pic finally got the greenlight and is gearing up for a July start of production, THR has confirmed the casting.

We know for sure that Williams can play a scrappy little badass, they actress has been doing just that for the last six years as Arya Stark on Game of Thrones. As Wolfsbane, a.k.a. Rahne Sinclair, Williams will take on the role of a Scottish mutant who transforms into a wolf-human hybrid with some powerful feral instincts and a religious upbringing that leaves her conflicted about her transformations.

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Image via Universal

Taylor-Joy is in the midst of a rapid career climb after the double whammy of her breakout role in The Witch, which earned the actress a BAFTA nomination, and the surprise sensation that is M. Night Shyamalan's Split. For New Mutants, her biggest studio project yet, Taylor-Joy will play Magik, a.k.a. Ilyana Nikolievna Rasputin, a Russian mutant (and younger sister to Colossus) with the power of teleportation. Magik can teleport herself and others from one location to another by stepping into a transitional dimension known as Limbo, teleport across time as well as through space, and eventually became the sorceress supreme of Limbo in the comics.

Williams and Taylor-Joy are the first key cast members in Boone's diverse ensemble, which will also include Danielle Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball, and an alien named Warlock. THR notes that 20th Century Fox "is making serious efforts to find ethnically appropriate actors, conducting wide searches for a Native American to play Moonstar and a South American for Sunspot." James McAvoy's Professor Charles Xavier is also expected to appear in the film, which makes sense since the New Mutants are traditionally students at Professor X's School for Gifted Youngsters.

 

New Mutants is scheduled to arrive in theaters on April 13, 2018.

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Image via HBO
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Image via Marvel Comics