Filming is already underway on Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class but that doesn't mean there isn't room for more mutants. Fotogramas [via ScreenRant] is reporting that Álex González is set to play the mutant Riptide in the upcoming prequel/reboot. For those who don't know (like me until I read the Marvel Wiki on the character), Riptide was a former henchman of bad guy Mr. Sinister. His special ability is that he can spin his body at an incredibly fast rate and then "hurls shuriken and other objects created from calcified masses at such high velocity that they can punch through steel." Basically, he's the Tasmanian Devil...with shurikens.
There's no word that Mr. Sinister will be in the film (although Kevin Bacon was rumored to play the role, it turned out he's playing Sebastian Shaw) so it's likely they're just picking up the character and dropping him into a story that's unconnected to his role in the comics. Hit the jump for a cast list and synopsis. X-Men: First Class opens June 3, 2011.
Here's how the casting currently stacks up:
- James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier
- Michael Fassbender as Magneto
- Bill Milner as Young Magneto
- Nicholas Hoult as Beast
- Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee
- Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique
- Morgan Lily as Young Mystique
- Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw
- Edi Gathegi as Darwin
- Jason Flemyng as Azazel
- Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert
- Oliver Platt as The Man in Black
- January Jones as Emma Frost
- Zoe Kravitz as Angel Salvadore
- Álex González as Riptide
Here's the official synopsis:
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.