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Court Of Lore
The Ultimate MCU X-Men Pitch You Need to Hear - Story Pitch, Casting, and more - (Ep. 162)
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Frank and Rich tackle Marvel's biggest challenge: bringing the X-Men into the MCU. With Jake Schreier directing, we break down what needs to happen for this franchise to succeed.
In this episode, you'll hear our controversial casting choices, discover our theory for mutant origins that could change everything, and find out why we think we cracked the perfect villain approach. Plus, we settle the biggest debate in X-Men fandom once and for all.
From personal origin stories to why this single movie will determine Marvel's entire future, this is the comprehensive X-Men discussion that covers casting, story structure, and franchise strategy.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction & Director Discussion
06:05 Our X-Men Origin Stories
12:53 Character Selection Debate
22:21 Dream Casting Breakdown
35:57 MCU Integration Theories
52:19 Villain Concepts & Story Structure
1:08:16 The Stakes for Marvel's Future
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Welcome back to the channel. I'm Frank McGuire, and by my side is co-host Rich Herrera. If you're new here, this is the Court of Lore and Court is in session. Now we're not here to blow smoke up your butt or get you mad just to rack up some clicks. We actually love this stuff. Movies, shows, comics, and we're going to be straight with you about what's working and what isn't. We've got no agenda and we don't do BS. Just honest conversations about your favorite made up shit. Today we're diving deep into Marvel's X-Men reboot. In this episode, you'll find out why Marvel just handed their most important franchise to a director nobody's talking about. And why? That might be genius. We'll reveal the one character choice that could kill the entire X-Men reboot before it starts. You'll hear our theory for smuggling mutants into the MCU that Marvel should absolutely steal. We're settling the Wolverine debate once and for all. Should he anchor the first movie? Or does Marvel have the balls to go without their biggest draw? And wait until you hear our villain pitch that writes itself and solves every MCU continuity problem. Plus, we're naming names. The dream cast that could save this franchise and the casting mistake that could doom it. By the end, you'll know exactly what needs to happen for this X-Men movie to absolutely crush it. Let's get into it. Jake Schreier. What are your thoughts on him being chosen to direct the X-Men? Where do you think that comes from? What do you think? What do you think that he's done that really translated to Feige and the other and the other producers at Marvel Studios to say that this is the guy for X-Men?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think with Thunderbolts, we were chatting, it's a it was a trauma drama a little bit. Everybody was connected. It was connected through some sort of trauma. And he he had he did a really good job in balancing everybody out, which I think when you have X-Men, I mean X-Men could easily be a trauma drama if he overlays kind of that type of filmmaking over X-Men. Easily could be that, depending on the angle that you take. And he does well with crowds. So he he did a really good job of managing the numbers, of making sure that everybody was represented equally. I mean, everybody had a chance to shine. And um, you know, it's a good choice. You know, Marvel has a history of finding uh finding good directors after they've done something well and kind of hanging around for a while. So you have Shrier doing that, you have obviously the Russo brothers doing that, and then of course James Gunn. He he stuck around for all three Guardians. Right. So you you find a winning formula and and it works. And I think what Marvel is probably doing more of than before is maybe letting directors be directors and make and just make a good movie. Um, I know Feige had his hand in all of them, trying to keep like a singular tone through the first three phases and it worked for the most part. But you know, at some point, you when you get a when you get a director like Chloe Zhao to do eternals, you let Chloe Zhao do Eternals, and but they didn't let her do that. So I think Marvel's learning their lesson and letting directors direct and let them make a good movie and and let the chips fall where they may. Critically, Thunderbolts would critically Thunderbolts did really well. Commercially, unfortunately, it didn't do as well as they would have hoped. But I'm hearing that streaming numbers are fantastic, which we talked about this in an earlier episode. That that is the movie going audience now. It's it's just they're just not going to the theaters as much anymore. And it's coming out in streaming, you know, within 90 days. So I this is the second Marvel movie I didn't catch in the theaters, and I I saw it at home. Thor Leven Thunder was the other one for different reasons. But I saw from the previous Thor Levant Thunder was was not going to be great. So I kind of skipped that one. But uh, you know, that's that's me now. I I I don't go to movies as often as I used to because I know it's gonna be on streaming pretty soon. So streaming numbers are going gangbusters. You can kind of equate that to like DVD sales back in the day, where uh a movie would get a second life as a as a DVD in rentals and sales, and that would propel it to get a sequel versus what it did in the box office. So yeah, I think Jake Schreyer's a good pick. You know, he's did well with Thunderbolts. I'm excited to see what he's gonna do with a clean slate of X-Men that's kind of both a pro and a con, but it'll be interesting to see what he does with it. I mean, it's three years out. We're already prognosticating about it.
SPEAKER_00So, Jake Schreyer, I think, maybe the right choice for the X-Men. I think you made a lot of good points. I think he did juggle the personalities and the bodies very well as far as throughout the film. He juggled the personalities, he juggled the different character dynamics to make them work together. Bucky kind of felt like a square peg and a round hole at times, but what I think they did a good job is finding his place because he's not really a lot like those guys. He's a little bit like those guys, but he's not really like those guys. So it's gonna be interesting to see how he deals with the X-Men because like Scott Summers is sort of the Bucky of this equation, right? Everybody else has these severe traumas, these, these, these really, these really dark pasts, these these haunted, haunted personalities. But Scott Summers is like the high school football, you know, captain, but everybody else had this much greater thing that they had to deal with, right? Wolverine had his thing with Weapon X, all his dead fiancés, all his dead women, the fact that he's been around for 200 plus years, etc. Nightcrawler, obviously, that's sort of like right at the surface as to what he's had to deal with. Rogue, again, self-explanatory, what that woman had to deal with. Uh Storm, self-explanatory. Like they all have these very colorful paths. And I'm not trying to minimize and say that Scott doesn't have anything they didn't go through. Like his parent, you know, his parentage is very, very, very odd, um, and is not exactly the clearest story in the world. And I'm sure he struggled with that throughout his childhood. If they get into that, like we saw a lot of that in X-Men 97, right? But but he's still the guy that that that that sort of doesn't really fit the trauma drama mold. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I'm interested to see what he's gonna do there. Yeah. So I'm kind of curious, Rich. How did you first connect to X-Men? Like, what was your first connection? Were you one of those, like, was it first the end like was the animated series like most people our age, or was it like were you into the comic books before the animated series?
SPEAKER_01Uh I would say it was the animated series. That that was my first kind of toe into comics, really. I didn't really get into comic books, like collecting comic books until college. But as a kid in college, a kid in high school, the X-Men animated series just was really it was cool. It looked it was awesome. It was for me as a teenager. Oh my gosh, it was it was the best best part of Saturday morning or afternoon. But it was really a compelling series. Looking back, it and looking back on it now. I kind of rewatched a little bit of it before 90 X-Men 97 came out. It aged really well. I mean, it's some of those uh stories are still compelling today. My fate one of my favorite episodes was when Nightcrawler was was uh more or less witnessing to to Wolverine, uh telling him, you know, like it was basically presenting like the gospel story to Wolverine. I thought, man, that's really interesting that they did that in a cartoon and the way they were able to weave it into the storyline was was really and that's how I that's when I kind of started really getting into Nightcrawler. I thought Nycrawl was a really cool character his because his Catholic faith really defines who he is in that episode. But yeah, and then in college I got into comics and collecting them, and the Age of Apocalypse series was really cool that I got into. Uh Chris Claremont, I think, is is obviously a classic line. So yeah, I mean X-Men is just a really cool just group of characters that are that are all somewhat damaged in one way or the other, and and interesting that they exist in a universe where people re revere people like Iron Man and Captain America that have these special abilities and Thor, but these other group of people, just because they're born with these powers versus bestowed upon them in some weird way, they're rejected and shunned. It was it was a really interesting dichotomy of you know protecting the the people that hate them. And I thought it was was really just a compelling narrative of of having X-Men. Because you could X-Men was was you could slot in any any group of people in into X-Men in terms of like a a tortured group or uh a people group that felt belittled or uh downtrodden, and and you could identify with the X-Men. And I think that was the biggest draw.
SPEAKER_00It was uh you know, it was a group that was sort of inclusive and inviting to everybody. Um and it and it certainly made you look at people that were different than you. Like if you were an X-Men fan, you couldn't really be one of those people that you know looked down upon anybody for being different because like you were fans of all these weirdos that that had all these crazy powers and did all these wacky things, right? Like exactly right. You got literally a blue demon um who can teleport you know wherever he wants and and has a you know has a devil appear that you know, has a devil's appearance to him, but he's also uh a pretty devout Catholic, which was pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, like they were a fat fascinating group of characters, fascinating uh team dynamics, fascinating character dynamics. There was always something happening inter interpersonally between the group, but also on the outside with the outside world, like how did they connect to the outside world, but also how did their connection in the outside world affect the outside world? Like there were so many different layers to those, you know, to those stories where it was always it was always interesting and compelling. My first connection to the X-Men, actually, so I was big into like ninjas and G.I. Joe and all kinds of like very combat, like combat soldier, ninja type stuff. And when I saw this character with like knives on his hands, I was like, holy shit, that's dope. Like I want to find out more about this guy. So I started looking into him and I was like, okay, this guy's named Wolverine, he's part of the X-Men. X-Men sounds cool. And I got my dad to take me to like the local comic shop because I got interested in it. And um, I bought classic, I bought classic X-Men number one for ten dollars. And at this point during my collecting, I didn't know that classic X-Men was just reprints of uncanny X-Men. So I thought I had something like extremely special, but the cover was amazing. Like the cover art on classic X-Men number one was just amazing, and I loved it. And you know, it's the story where they do the first mission to Krokoa, right? They had like the first, you know, Banshee, Wolverine, Thunderbird, Colossus, Nightcrawler, like the new group, right? And I thought it was awesome. Like I was like, holy shit, this is really this is really cool. And I just I just completely like fell in love with Wolverine because he was just, you know, no fucks to give, um, and just did whatever he wanted to do. And uh he was just the guy that, you know, kind of went by his own drum. Like he wasn't somebody that was gonna kowtow to to really anybody. And he just seemed like a really interesting character. And it was kind of funny to watch him walk around to like 5-3 among all these like huge people and have him be the guy that comes out of the fight, you know, just totally unbroken, but ready for more. I was I just really loved him as a character. And then shortly after that, I read the Dark Phoenix Sega and I just I just fell in love with it. I just fell in love with X-Men. I fell in love with comic books, I fell in love with storytelling, I fell in love with the whole thing, like the Shiar Empire, like that whole storyline, like where they had to fight them, like the X-Men had to fight the Shiar to keep Gene alive. I was like, holy cow, this is awesome. This is so good. So, yeah, that's so that was my introduction to X-Men. And then obviously the movies, uh the animated series, obviously, like I said, uh was a big part of my growing up. And then when they came out with that movie, I was like, I was first in line. I was like dying to see it. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was giddy like I was giddy like a 12-year-old schoolgirl. I mean, yeah, to see the X-Men on screen uh after watching them, you know, in in comic books and in cartoon form for so long, and uh seeing them on screen live and just nailing every character. The the 2000s X-Men's really you know ushered in the the comic book movie era um and and and showed that when taken seriously, it can be done well and people will like it, and people will go and see it. And and you know, Hollywood learned the lesson and and off to the races we went. Um and and it's wild hearing some of the the stories behind it, like uh Hugh Jackman wasn't supposed to be the original Wolverine, it was it was supposed to be uh uh Russell Crowe. He turned it down and said, Hey, I know this guy, uh Hugh Jackman, he might be good at it.
SPEAKER_00And then No, I don't think it was Russell Crowe, I think it was the guy from Mission Impossible.
SPEAKER_01Doug Ray Scott, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So somebody wanted the dude from two.
SPEAKER_01I think it was two of Danzig. Um somebody wanted Yeah. But it was just yeah, it was really it was like when I watched the 2000 movie, it was like when I was watching the animated series for the first time. I'm like, holy cow, this looks pretty. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that first opening scene while Wolverine, like where Wolverine is like just literally just doing bare knuckle brawling in a bar, like in a yeah, it got straight out of a comic book. Like in the middle of Alberta, he's just jumping in the cage with people and like throwing down. Pure, pure comic book moment. Let's talk about the characters. Like you absolutely who do you absolutely have to have in this X-Men movie? Starting. So were you gonna starting five like a basketball team? Yeah, we'll do five. Yeah, yeah, we'll do five.
SPEAKER_01We'll do five. Okay, so I got a hot take. Think, don't think you introduce Gene or Wolverine out the gate. Boo. Yeah, I I don't think you do it. Well, you know, you have X-Men First Class, which was sort of a soft reboot of the X-Men franchise. Right. And you didn't have the big three in there other than Cyclops, right? You had some lesser-known mutants in there, and it was a great, great movie. And from what I've read, this is gonna be a younger skewing, and I kind of hope they don't go high school young. I hope they go kind of like college, end of college age young. Yeah. Because we we we've done we've done the high school. I don't have a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00I don't want a YA movie. I don't want, yeah, I don't want Marvel looking at the X-Men as a way to replace the promise that they made about the young Avengers.
SPEAKER_01I don't want high school X-Men. I want like mid to late 20s, early 30s, kind of in their career X-Men, but you know, the whole question about how do they how do you cram them into the MCU after 20 years of them not being in the MCU is a whole other question. But my starting five, back I digress. So my starting five, so hot take, I don't want Wolverine or Gene Gray right away. I think you save them for later movies. I think for me, you have I think you have Scott, you have Iceman, you have Nightcrawler, Beast, and Angel. Those are my five. Because and here's the reason why I don't want Gene Gray, because the moment you put Gene Gray in there, somebody's gonna want to do the Phoenix saga. And we've all seen how poorly that's been done, but that seems to be the white whale of every director that gets the X-Men franchise is let's do the Phoenix saga. And it just it just goes horribly. So let's not put Gene Gray in just yet. Wolverine, I mean, Wolverine, Wolverine is such an iconic character, and no matter who plays him, you're gonna have the Hugh Jackman comparisons. Yeah. That's gonna be unfair to who unless you get Henry Cavill to reprise his role as the Cavalline, then whichever young actor gets Wolverine is just gonna unfortunately be compared, and that's not fair to that person at all. So I feel like if you wait till later, and really, I mean, Hugh Jackman looks he's in peak shape for him to be in his what mid-50s, he looks great. So he can do this till he's 90. And he's said he's willing to do it until he's 90. So maybe introduce him later, Hugh Jackman. I don't know, but it's it's I think you want to establish the universe first before you start throwing in the big guns of Storm and Gene Gray and Rogue and and all them in there. So that's my starting five. What about you?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you want to lead with you don't want to lead with what's commercially gonna be the most successful, basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Uh without having the big three in there, right? Without having the big three in there. Yeah, people that have that have been seen before, but not a lot of. So Nightcrawler was the best part of X2, right? But Alan Cummings 60. He's not gonna be doing Nightcrawler again after Doomsday. So you you can slot in another Alan Cumming is not necessarily Nightcrawler, you can slot in another young, young gymnastics actor uh to do Nightcrawler. Iceman's the same way. Beast, as long as you have Kelsey Grammer voicing Beast, anybody can play him. And then you have Scott Summers. Oh god, who did I say? Nightcrawler, Iceman, Beast, Cyclops. Oh my gosh. My memory just went to crap. Nightcrawler, beast, cyclops, scott summers. You're missing somebody. I'm missing somebody. So Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Beast.
SPEAKER_00Archangel, you said.
SPEAKER_01Archangel. That's right. An Archangel. I mean, personally, Archangel was I liked Archangel in the comics. It was he was one of my one of my favorite characters. And again, not seen. He was in Age of Apocalypse, forgettably in Age of Apocalypse. So again, you can slot anybody in there. So these are characters that haven't been in the movies a lot that you can't really compare to. Because you're gonna get the comparisons with with Wolverine, to some extent Cyclops, but not really, and and then Gene Gray. Because Gene Gray has been shown multiple times in different iterations. But yeah, uh, that's that's my five. I think they're well-known names that will do well commercially, but it helps establish that base. And then the second X-Men movie, MCU X-Men movie, comes out, and then you start introducing some of the other ones. Then you then you get your new Wolverine in there. And then you want if you want to throw Gene Gray, fine, just don't do Phoenix Saga, do something else.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. Okay. Well, me, I've gotta have Wolverine. Have to have Wolverine. I'm a huge Wolverine fan. I don't want an X-Men movie without Wolverine. I do want him to be somewhat physically more accurate to the comic portrayal. I would settle for 5'8, 5'9 if they had to go for it. I don't think that we're gonna get 5'3, and I'm okay with that. Uh, or 5'6, like, you know, he's sort of fluctuated throughout the comics from 5'3 to 5'6. Um, I don't think we're gonna get that. I do want him to be Canadian. I think that would be really cool. I think they need to go for an unknown, but I also think he needs to be one of the older people on the team. I think he needs to have that sort of grizzled aspect to him and like older for the sake of the fact that he's also born in you know the 1800s, right? He was born in the year 1812, I believe. So I want that to be an accurate component of the character. Like I want that backstory, I want that fully established. I definitely want the the more layered version of Wolverine with the you know, the weapon X experiments and Alpha Flight and all the stuff that he's been through, Japan, etc., all that stuff. I want all those layers to the character. I don't need to be introduced to them like in the first movie, but like flashbacks and stuff, like let's definitely get into that. You've got psychics that work with him to sort of unearth those scenes. Let's start doing that again. I think that would be a great idea. And by the way, we shouldn't be counting Professor X in our five because that doesn't make any sense. Okay, good. Awesome. Nightcrawler for sure. I love Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one of my favorite characters. He's probably in my top top 20 of all Marvel characters. And then I would say a Rogue, Storm, and Cyclops. That's right. Wolverine, Nightcrawl. Yeah, yeah, rogue storm and nightclops or cyclops. Actually, I think we should make it six because six would be more of an even for an X-Men team. Five's not really an even X-Men team, I don't think. Like how many, how many were on the first team on X-Men 97? Right?
SPEAKER_01I think it was I feel like it was more than six. I mean, there was a few. I think it was four and six, too.
SPEAKER_00But we'll do six. So I would have Gene. Like, I think you need Gene. Yeah, Storm, Rogue, Cyclops, and Wolverine and Nightcrawler, and Gene.
SPEAKER_01Those would be Yeah, I'd throw my Storm as Storm in there as my sixth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah. I like Storm. I think I I think those are all the most compelling characters. I think that they have the largest fan base, the largest following. And I think Marvel needs to double down on commercial success as much as they possibly can. Also, they were very popular characters in the X-Men 97 series. I think that they should be using that almost like as a data, like a data pool to kind of mine, you know, where, you know, what decisions make the most sense, what they should be doing, how they should look at making creative decisions. Yeah, so we picked our characters, kind of who we want. Let's start with casting. Who is your ideal boy Professor X?
SPEAKER_01Man, anybody not Patrick Stewart just seems just seems wrong. But he's getting up there. He's getting up there in age. I don't know how much longer he wants to do. Professor X. Put me on the spot. Um, I'm not for sure. Real What was the guy's name that did him in X-Men First Class? What was his name again? Oh, James McAvoy. Yeah. I mean, bring him back. He was great. But are we are we starting like all new again? Like this is gonna be. So I I'm guessing Doomsday is gonna be the final nail in the coffin for the Sony universe of what they have with Marvel. So I guess we're gonna have to start all over again. I don't know, man. You go first. You tell me who who's your dream catch.
SPEAKER_00Sure, maybe mine will inspire you. Okay, Brian Cranston for Prof Professor X, I think. I have heard rumors. Is the best choice.
SPEAKER_01I've heard rumors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he'd be great. He'd be great. He has the range to carry it. He has he's just a great performer, great, great on-screen presence. And I think when it comes to dealing with the students, when there's moments of tense, you know, when things get tense and when things get sort of combative, I can see him kind of going to like Walter White. And uh I think it'll be I think it'll be interesting. So I would go with Brian Cranston. Brian Cranston's out like definitely my top, my top choice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's he's done the uh mentor role. He played Zordon in the Power Rangers movie, so he's got that like mentoring young heroes bit down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he does. He did, yeah, he did play Zordon, and he mentored Jesse Pinkman in a way, I guess. But yeah, I think he would be great. Like, obviously, we know that he can pull off the bald head.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I kind of see him fitting very seamlessly into that character physically, like just sort of the aesthetic of it. I see him fitting very, very easily into the aesthetic of that character. I think that he would just look awesome and just look picture perfect and just perfect note for for X Xavier.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I agree with that casting. That's a good one. I've heard some fan castings. Of Stanley Tucci as Professor X. I like Stanley Tucci. Stanley Tucci's great. That could be that could be a good pick. That could be a good pick. But I like Cranston. I think he's got the gravitas to pull it off and being able to guide young heroes.
SPEAKER_00I think it'd be good. Okay. Cool. So I guess we'll cast my group first, then we'll cast your group because we have different groups. So that that really only makes sense. Okay, so we'll do that.
SPEAKER_01Who would you cast as Wolverine if you had the choice? Oh man, after seeing Henry Cavill, I'd love to see Henry Cavill as Wolverine. Okay. Especially in the MCU, but he is he's a big dude, man. And we're if you're talking comic accurate, yeah, he might be a little he might be a little too big. But I I gotta I gotta go with Henry Cavill because after seeing him in Daredevil uh or Wolverine Deadpool, I was like, more of that, please. I got I got such a man crush on that guy. Uh yeah, Cavill for for for Wolverine, I think would be great.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Cavill, I think, is a little bit too old. I think. Don't you think that he because like you're saying they want to skew a little bit younger, right? So yeah, don't you think they may be just a little bit too a little bit too old, or I don't know. Thoughts?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe, maybe. There there were rumors of Daniel Radcliffe maybe playing Wolverine, so that's right. And Taryn Edgerton kind of getting thrown around too. Taryn Edgerton, Egerton would be a good Wolverine, I think, especially after watching him in Kingsman. He's got the action chops. I think he'd make a great Wolverine.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I want I want a fresh choice. I want somebody completely new that we don't know about that's Canadian and that can carry the role. That's that's ultimately what I want. I don't know if we'll get that. If I had to choose anybody who's out there right now, it would be Wes Chaytham from The Expanse, Amos.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen The Expanse yet, so I'm not familiar with his work.
SPEAKER_00You haven't seen The Expanse yet? Dude, you gotta watch that series.
SPEAKER_01It's so good. It's on my list, man. Not enough hours, too many shows.
SPEAKER_00So good, man. It is so good. Um, yeah, they're like that series is like probably one of the best things on television right now, or best thing available like right now. It's so so freaking good. Okay, so let's cast one of your guys. Who do you want to cast?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm gonna go Archangel, and I want to see Austin Butler as Archangel.
SPEAKER_00Austin Butler's Archangel would be peak. Yeah, that's a peak archangel choice. I really like that one.
SPEAKER_01I like Austin Butler.
SPEAKER_00If we're people talking about him for Gambit, he'd be a great gambit, he'd be a great green arrow, but he also I think would be a great Warren Worthington, great Archangel, great choice. I mean that would be ideal.
SPEAKER_01He he would play kind of that spoiled rich kid shtick really well, and then as he progresses through the movie and grows his character, he he becomes that person that you know does right, uh does the right thing and kind of sheds that rich kid persona. But he's got the looks, I think, for a for a Warren Worthington the third kind of guy. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, uh, I've seen him getting fan casts as Gambit, but I think I'd rather see him as Archangel. And if they decide to go with like the metal wings later on down the line, he he can play that like horseman of the apocalypse type role too. I just think he's a really great actor. I saw him in Elvis. I thought he was great in Elvis, Masters of the Air, he was really great in that movie too. Just shows a lot of range and that he's just more than a pretty face. So um I think you need somebody like that for Archangel to show some depth, um, and that he's just not some rich, good-looking white guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and he's definitely kind of menacing when he wants to be, and you need that for Archangel. So that's a good call. Yeah, that's a really good call. Okay, my next cast is gonna be Storm. Who would you cast as Storm? And I'll tell you mine. Storm.
SPEAKER_01And this might be recency bias, but we me and my wife watched Wicked the other day. Right. So I think Cynthia Arrivo I think would make a really good storm.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, I thought she was great. She's so annoying and she's so extra. Like she like listen, I'm sure she's a wonderful person. I'm sure she's a wonderful human being, but her showing up at those press junkets with Aria Grande and just going full extra with her like on every interview, like crying and just too much, dude.
SPEAKER_01Just too much. I mean, that's press junkets, though. We're talking about character on the screen. I think she would do really well back in the day when when I was when I was fan casting X-Men back in the Wizard. Remember the Wizard magazine days? Loved Wizard magazine, dude. Wizard magazine was the best. So good, dude. I wanted Angela Bassett to play Storm at some point. I think she could still pull it off. I think she could still play Storm to this day. But I mean, if we're casting younger, yeah. So Cynthia Revo's kind of the the the it girl at the moment uh since Wicked. So I think she'd make a pretty good Storm.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna throw you a total curveball here. I want Alexander Ship again. Alexandra Ship, okay. She was in Apocalypse. Oh, that's right. Right? I thought she was a great storm. I had no problems with her as Storm. I thought she was a great storm. And I think that she's attractive enough and she has enough screen presence and enough range, and she's an excellent, excellent actress. I think she would kill it. I think she would be amazing. You know, I like the fact that she had the Mohawk in the apocalypse. I don't want to see her with the Mohawk just yet. I want to see that be, you know, sort of the the the transitional point when she goes to the Morlocks, if that ever happens. But yeah, I think that I think I think Alexander Ship can carry that. No problem. All right, who we casting next for you?
SPEAKER_01I think we should go with Nightcrawler. Oh my gosh, who would I want for Nightcrawler? I think I really want Taryn Egerton to play somebody in X-Men. So I think I think he would probably do pretty well as Nightcrawler. The blue paint, I'm trying to picture him in blue paint, though. Oh, when I said Alan Cumming isn't Nightcrawler, that's who I'm picturing in my mind. As Nightcrawler is Alan Cumming, he just looks so iconic in X-Men 2 and looked really great. And and really with the with the prosthetics and everything, just really looked just like Nightcrawler from the comics. I don't know if Terry Negert could pull it off, but Edgerton could could do a good job physic physically. Who was that one kid that was rumored to play Spider-Man back in the day? He was in Ender's game. Asa Butler. Asa Butler. I think he'd be I think he'd be a pretty good young Nightcrawler.
SPEAKER_00He'd be good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He'd be good. I'm gonna go because I said Nightcrawler too. So my Nightcrawler would be Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things. Yeah, he'd be good. He'd be really good. He's got that lanky body's tall. He's got, you know, he he's he's he's got the right dimensions. I think he's got the right presence too, like the right face. Like I could see him as like a blue demon with that, you know, the hair that he rocks in in um in Stranger Things. Like, I think that that could actually work for him.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00So I casted my nightcrawler, so you go again. Who's yours?
SPEAKER_01So uh the next one I have is Iceman. I think I want Sean Ashmore back as Iceman. He made a really great ice. He was good. He was a really great Iceman. Yep. And he has his acting has only improved through the years, especially like in the rookie, he's really good. But yeah, I I would want Sean Ashmore back. It's it's been a while, so I think people will forgive that we're recasting the same Iceman in our MCU Iceman. But you know, he could be somewhat the elder statesman in the group, right? The one that's kind of been around the block for a bit and can show some of the younger ones the way to go. But I really love Sean Ashmore as Iceman, and I want to see him back as Iceman. But another, another guy that that has caught my eye recently is the dude from Cobra Kai, Tanner Buchanan, I think. Oh, he's good. He did a really good job in Cobra High. And I think if you're gonna go younger, you want to go with him. And thinking about the Cobra Kai cast, I think Zolo could do really well, but I think he's gonna be tied up with Blue Beetle for a minute. Yeah, hopefully. But Tanner, I think he would make a really good Iceman too.
SPEAKER_00Cool. All right, I've got another Stranger Things pick. Dakra Montgomery. Oh, I'm gonna have to look that one up. Billy.
SPEAKER_01Billy. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Remember he was in he was in Power Rangers too.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's right. He was the Red Ranger.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's got that look. He's got that like sort of Silver Surfer. See, that's the conversation that never gets to have around Iceman. It's like how him and the Silver Surfer just basically look like twins. One's made of metal, one's made of ice. Yeah, it's true. Too funny. But yeah, Daker Montgomery.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, looking at him now, I I would want him as my Cyclops. I mean, he'd make a great Cyclops too. I gotta go with Schwarzenegger for that, man. Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_00Patrick Schwarzenegger. I really like him as Cyclops.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's got that square jaw, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00What was his character in um You know who else would be great if they were going a little bit older for Cyclops? Ellen Richson would be an amazing, amazing Cyclops.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He's big, like he's a little too big. He'd probably have to kind of slint, like sort of trim down a bit. He's a big dude, but I think he could, I think he could kill Cyclops. Like he's got that, he's got the whole look. Like he's definitely got that whole, like, I played, I I play the quarterback look, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. He actually did in Blue Mountain State, which is funny. Funny you should mention that. He's actually he would actually be my Colossus if I were to cast Colossus. Alan Rickman as Colossus. Yeah, he's he's a what do you need for Colossus? A Russian accent and just huge, right? So I think with the dialect coach, he can get him to do a Russian accent, but the man is a mountain. He is he is massive.
SPEAKER_00I would want that kid back from the original X-Men movies that never got to say anything. He just looked great as Colossus.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Yeah. He was awesome. He didn't he didn't get much screen time, did he? He rescued the kids, and that was about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he was pretty good. He was pretty good. Uh but yeah, he didn't get much screen time at all. Okay, where are we in casting? Is it my turn? Uh sure. Uh okay, so what do I say? I said uh let me okay, let me think. Did Wolverine, did Nightcrawler, did Storm. So leftover is Cyclops. So yeah, I'm gonna say Alan Richson. I would go with Alan Richson if I could. Like, like if I only have that one choice, um yeah, if I only have that one choice and I'm going a little bit older, I'm going for Alan Richson. If I'm going younger, I think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be Schwarzenegger. Yeah, I think Schwarzenegger is gonna be a good pick.
SPEAKER_01So Beast. Okay. So Beast is kind of complicated. Right. I really liked um I really liked the portrayal of him in the original X-Men movies, the the guy that played Fraser. His name just blitzed my mind. Kelsey Grammar. Kelsey Grammar. Yep. So I kind of want him to be voiced by Kelsey Grammar. But again, we're skewing, we gotta go younger, right? So Yeah, cuz because he just has that voice of just authority and all that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Grammar has an iconic voice, dude. Like you cannot get past how iconic his voice is. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01I mean, even even Darth Vader now is still voiced by James Earl Jones via AI, right? So true. Yeah. I mean, so I think I want it to be voiced by Kelsey Gramer. I want to keep that, I think.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And and then I don't know, you just throw any any person in blue makeup and you're done, right? So it is just somebody that can play him physically. So for for me, I don't really care who plays him physically, but I just want him voiced by Kelsey Grammar. He he did such an iconic and they already established that sort of in the MCU with that post-credit scene in the Marvels. So it's it's already there. So that's really the only X-Men they've shown in the MCU. So it's already somewhat canon. So I don't I don't think it'd be too outside the lines to say just get Kelsey Grammar back in the sound booth and then just throw somebody in a blue suit and you're good.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, but if they went younger, who would you go for?
SPEAKER_01So if they had if they had to supply the voice and the body, I would say Sam Richardson. He he played that uh that one dude on Ted Lasso, the the owner of the Nigerian soccer team. Um I think he'd be I think he'd be pretty good. He'd be good.
SPEAKER_00He'd be f he'd he'd be I don't know, he wouldn't sound very he wouldn't have that academic presence though, I don't think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But physically I think he'd he'd do good. He's kind of a a a big physical guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I guess for that he'd be a good pick.
SPEAKER_00Okay, cool. All right. I got two left. I got Jean Gray and I've got Rogue. Let's see. So for my Gene Gray, I'm probably gonna go back to Sophie Turner to give her another shot. She was great. I think she'd be awesome. But I'd also go with Connor Leslie from Titans. Okay. I think Titans.
SPEAKER_01Titans was good.
SPEAKER_00I think she could be amazing as far as that role goes. Connor Leslie killed it. Like, she's a great actress, she's an amazing actress. She just didn't like her role just got minimized. She could have been a much been a much bigger draw in Titans than than she was allowed to be. She was just a great actress. So I would love to see her come back and play that role. I think she'd be amazing in that role. Do you got anybody left? Uh no, I don't think so. Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Beast. No, that was it. Okay. Yeah. So my rogue is probably gonna be Margaret Margaret Quali. I've seen a lot of people talking about her and sort of fan casting her, and I really like Margaret Quali a lot. So I would go with Marga Quali. Yeah, yeah. All right, so you get put in charge of the X-Men movie. It's all up to you. Boy. Who are you building your story around? Who are the characters you're putting the focus on?
SPEAKER_01So who's my POV character, right? Yeah. Um it feel like for me, because of of my of my six, so you have Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Beast, and an Angel. I would probably make I'd almost want Nightcrawler to be my POV. Because he he's, you know, kind of he's blue. And so he's but I I just I just love his complex character, right? He's he's like you were talking about, he's looks like a demon, but is a devout Christian, a devout Catholic. Um, and him entering the the the MCU and as an X-Men, uh I mean, where would you start? Right? He was a circus, he was a circus trapeze artist, so maybe you kind of start it from there. The the the big question though to ask is if we're starting we're starting these X-Men in the MCU, the first thing is where were they? Where have they been since 2008's Iron Man? And I think you have to answer that question before you can really dig into who's your POV.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let's tackle that first, because I actually have an idea about that. Okay. So, with everything that's happened in Eternals with the Celestials, I would say the best way into the MCU for the X-Men is Jonathan Hickman's premise with Krakoa. During that time period, there was like this spike of energy and it gave birth to Krakoa, and Krakoa gave birth to the X-Men, gave birth to mutants. Some left, some stayed, but they've been hiding under the radar because they don't want to be discovered. I would kind of play that. I would kind of play it that way. I think that would make the absolute most sense because I don't really see a way in other than some sort of multiverse gimmick. Like I don't really see a lot of ways in because that's obviously how the how the Fantastic Four are going to get in. We saw that in Thunderbolts. That's sort of the direction we're going with that. But as far as the X-Men, and if the X-Men are going to be birthed into the existing MCU and not in another alternate universe, I think that this is the best way to do it. Because Krakoa in Jonathan Hickman's version was more or less like an incubator for mutants. It grew mutants, right? Like if you died, you didn't die, you just came back in Krakoa. It was like a regeneration chamber. So I think if they do the story right, they can attribute this energy spike or this fantastical energy that's been imbued into the earth through the celestial to bring Krokoa into the mix, and then Krakoa being the birthplace of mutants in the X-Men. I think that's the best place to do it. But we've already explored the concept of mutants with Miss Marvel. That's already been the door's already been opened. So are all the other mutants just in hiding and have just let Thanos attack Earth and the Tatari attack Earth and and all this other stuff, and they just had no desire to be heroes? Like, I don't know, man. You know, like you know, I think that was one of the biggest missteps with with the MCU over the last couple years was was was tying Miss Marvel into this whole thing. And by the way, we should talk about how they plan to do that with this because they put her into the comics in preparation for putting her into this into this X-Men movie.
SPEAKER_01Miss Marvel?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she's a mutant in the comics, right? So they so yeah, they basically did a revision, like a like a version of the X-Men story with Miss Marvel as an X-Men, like as a mutant. So Marvel Comics went to the extent to do that so they can have her as they move into the MCU version of the X-Men.
SPEAKER_01I think for me, the way in is they've always been there, right? So it's kind of like with the street level heroes, like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, you know, the the question was why didn't we see them in Endgame? Where were they? Why didn't they get the sling ring treatment, right? They had their own battles to fight out on the streets of New York in in Hell's Kitchen and Manhattan and all that. So my thinking, and and really when you think about like the Infinity Saga, the blip, and all those kind of big events that has happened in the MCU for the last almost 20 years, you know, you're only seeing one perspective of it. You're only seeing one person's perspective, one group's perspective of everything that happened. You're not seeing everything else, right? Sure. So the argument could be made that they always have been there. They weren't on Doctor Strange's radar to be sling ringed into the endgame. So nobody knew they were around. They were fighting their maybe fighting their own battles or underground, or maybe they just weren't. And they were trying to, like you're saying, just keep as normal as possible without getting into it. But like with Miss Marvel, you know, she thought her powers came from like the Bengals, but she's had those powers latent all along. And then the blip happens, and then the blip unhappens, and then, you know, they just have been there. And we just never saw their perspective on like the Battle of New York or when Iron Man came out in 2008 and had that big news conference, or when Steve Rogers was unfrozen. Nope, they weren't around when the Avengers were being assembled. So it was you just have to explain where they've been, you know, for for those many years, or you just don't, and they're just there now. And now you're getting this new perspective of, you know, superheroes. What is it that vision said ever since Tony Stark made himself known? The the level, the threat levels have grown exponentially, or something like that. Yeah. So yeah, when they said that in uh Civil War. So it's it's just one of those things where they hadn't had to come out until Iron Man said he was Iron Man, and then all these like world-ending events started happening. They had no reason to come out. You have for those that were like disfigured mutants, you have the Morloc situation, all the disfigured mutants that couldn't blend into normal society. You write them into the Morlocks, and they've been living underground for who knows how long, and there's urban myth and legend of people that have think they saw some like alligator or huge rat or something in the sewers, and it was really a mutant.
SPEAKER_00But there's but there's a way to do this story without having to say that they existed during the same time. There is a way to do that, right? Yeah. Like I said, I think the celestial, I think the celestial is the tie-in. I think that's the way to go. Because let's just forget the whole idea about about Krokoa for a second, right? Like they could just use the celestial energy the same way that they used the Terragen stuff back in Agents of Shield. Like, say the celestial energy has been imbued into the, you know, into all of humanity, it's crossed over into DNA and whatever, and it create it creates this mutation in certain people. Like that's something that actually could be explored. Because without Professor X, there is no X-Men. So if you make Professor X sort of the linchpin of the X-Men getting started and he realizes he's different, and he has to go out and build Cerebro and find the people, like find other mutants like him so he can help them. Maybe he's inspired by the Avengers. Maybe he's inspired by the other the other groups. Like maybe that's the thing. Like there's a there's a there's a chance that they can do it that way. The only the only character that sort of upsets doing it that way is Wolverine because he's been around for 200 years, unless you change his backstory, which I think is really stupid. So, but then again, Namor is also considered the original mutant as well. Yeah, so maybe it's just Namor and Wolverine that predate this version of the mutants, right? And then the celestial energy is this thing that sort of again imbues the earth, crosses over into human DNA, alters human DNA, accelerates it. Professor X has changed, you know, when he's young, and then builds Cerebro, etc. But Wolverine, Miss Marvel, and and and Namor are sort of the outliers that already exist. So you could kind of explain it that way. I like I like my Kirkoa idea. The other idea I really like too, and this would be a multiversal, a multiversal gimmick, but I think it would be awesome. Did you ever did you ever read Enemy the State, the Wolverine story? No, I missed that one. Okay, so he gets programmed to basically go assassinate somebody, right? Because he's like a killing machine, he's worked as a secret agent for SHIELD, he's worked for the Canadian government, he's just like this killing machine. So brainwashed. Sorry?
SPEAKER_01So Manchurian candidate kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Manchurian candidate. Exactly, right? So he gets brainwashed into you know committing this political murder. So what they could do is have Wolverine cross over into this universe to kill somebody, and the X-Men have to follow him to stop him. Like they could use that whole enemy of the state structure to kind of bring him into this universe. How they keep them here, whether they do or not, that's a whole other thing. But that's definitely something that could be explored and would actually make a ton of sense. Like it actually could work.
SPEAKER_01Now, if they're talking about Doomsday and Secret Wars retconning the MCU, then there's there's some rumors out there that basically I think it's gonna be Doomsday. That's gonna be almost like uh Avengers versus X Men Light, because it's gonna be two incursions. The so the incursion worlds are gonna be the Sony universe and the Marvel 616 universe colliding. Right. And of course the Sony universe goes away, right? So then they they have That incursion battle, so to speak, and the Sony universe goes away, and then the whole MCU gets retconned, starts over. So that kind of goes back to my theory of they've always now have been there. And so you you wipe clean everything that happened up until from 2008 to doomsday is for lack of a better term, no longer matters if we're talking about if doomsday is retconning everything. Then from from I from I am Iron Man to I to to Doomsday is gone. And then then whatever's birthed out of Secret Wars is the new MCU and it's it's a clean slate. So now the X-Men have just have always been, and you just you just tell their story, right? So yeah, so I I think it could be that. I I don't think now that we you know now I'm gonna think about it, I because it's re being released in 2022 2028 after Secret Wars, you don't have to shoehorn them in into MCU. They just are there, right?
SPEAKER_00I get what you're saying. I still think that, yeah, but like as much as I hate to say it, this whole incursion thing is just them cleaning up messy threads that they started that they didn't finish, right? Right? Like this whole storyline, because this is what they should have done with Loki. Like Loki should have been the start of all of this. Like, let's just face facts, you know? They should have just proceeded from Loki and just said, okay, blank slate, we can do whatever we want. Loki just basically broke the universe. What can we do here? And they should have really had a design and a plan to do something on the heels of Loki, which they didn't obviously have because we got other movies that didn't touch Loki at all, right? They had nothing to do with Loki. There was no tie-ins, there was no nothing. So they so they kind of missed their opportunity here. And I was thinking too, in Fantastic Four, they missed an opportunity as well. You know, when they're escape, like you know, during the car chase scene and Ben's trying to get away from the Silver Surfer, yeah, and Reed says just jump anywhere. He should have just jumped into the Thunderbolts shot. Yeah. Like he should have jumped into the Thunderbolt shot. Like that would have actually been something that would have made a lot of news, would have created a lot of hype. A lot of people would have been like, holy cow, how did they do that mid-movie? Like they just literally they're in the middle of this scene, they're dealing with Sue Givingburg to Franklin, and then boom, they're in the and then they're in the same universe as the rest of the MCU. Like that could have been that could have been crazy. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was the only thing that kind of disappointed me with watching Thunderbolts at the end of it. They showed the Fantastic Four ship, but Fantastic Four didn't explain how that got there. Because I I thought there would have been more of a connective thread. Like we know they're gonna end up in our Marvel 616, but I mean that the end of Fantastic Four would have been cool if you know the post-credit scene was Doom gets Franklin and they have to chase him out, and then they jump universes, and then it leads to the post-credit scene of Thunderbolts, and they're like, Who's this going on? But that's neither here nor there. But yeah, so I mean I think that I mean the X-Men's is it's gonna be tricky. That Jake Trier's gonna have this is the movie that they gotta get right. This is X-Men is such an iconic movie that we've seen in many iterations from you know various different movies to X-Men 97. It holds a special place in every comic book fan's heart. This is more than any other character in existence, the X-Men.
SPEAKER_00And X-Men 97 set the bar. Like, let's face it, like X-Men 97 set the bar, and everybody's like, listen, if you can't live up to this, you hired the wrong people to take over, like you hired the wrong people to do this story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00And Bo DeMayo, and Bo DeMeo, who's now been let go from the show, is just gonna be like laughing, you know, silently to himself. Yeah because yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean it's crazy. This this is the movie they've got to get right. If they don't get X-Men right, if X-Men turns out to be not a great movie, and I'm not even talking about it, it just has to be great. It can't even be mediocre, it can't even be like a B plus movie. It's just it's gotta, it's gotta knock it out of the park, it's gotta be a home run movie, or you're gonna lose both the casual and the diehard fans because you're gonna lose the diehard fans. Like, you can't you took our property and jacked it all up, and then the casual fans are are gonna be like that. Maybe only have exposure to the X-Men movies and maybe the animated series, are gonna be like, who are what is this X-Men? This this look this is not the X-Men I remember. Like, you have to really thread that line and thread that needle, and and Jake Trier's got a job ahead of him uh for the next few years of getting the casting right, getting the script right, getting the set pieces right. You better get that CGI team, you know, eating their Wheaties because it's gonna be a lot of CGI. Everything has got to be on point because if if they screw up X-Men, you can forget about the rest of the MCU from here on out because it's it'll be it'll be done. This is this is the one movie they gotta get right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it'll be the signal to all of us that you know if there's a future for the MCU or not, like that will be the watermark. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. X-Men will be the canary in the coal mine of MCU's future. Like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they have to nail it, they have to get it, they have to leave, they have to leave all the political activism, social activism shit. Like, sure, okay. Now, actually, no, that's kind of a stupid thing to say about X-Men. It has to be done right. If there, if there's gonna be a message in this particular film, it has to be done with the same subtlety, with analogy, with allegory, with an artistic standard. It has to be done artfully for it to resonate with people. Yes. Like if you like if you do some heavy-handed preaching, proselytizing in the X-Men movie, that is not gonna land on the audience well. Just not because we're used to the allegory. They're a living allegory. We don't need we don't need any preaching, we don't need any of that stuff, right? Like we get it. They're a living allegory.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, right? So you it it doesn't need to be heavy-handed.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't need to be heavy-handed. If you want to explore political and social themes, the X-Men characters are the perfect way to do that. But to do it through allegory, to do it through story, to do it through character, to do it through like art, the artful means that you have at your disposal, not PSAs. If you throw a fucking PSA at us, we're gonna lose our minds and we're gonna riot. Like that's going to happen. Yeah. Because we're, you know, we've already told, like, you know, we've already been pretty clear that we're done with all that stuff. We don't want to see it at any MCU properties anymore. We don't want to see it in DC, we don't want to see it in DC properties anymore. We don't see wanna see it in the Star Wars properties anymore. Like we're done with that stuff. So if you do it with the X-Men, just because it's the X-Men and because they have a history central to the civil rights movement, find a way to do it, but do it artfully. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01And it can be done. It can be done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it can definitely be done. There's no discounting that. It can be done, you know. My concern with the X-Men moving forward is that if they're doing this much right now with Miss Marvel to position her into the X-Men, that she is going to be a major focus of this X-Men movie. And I think that is the wrong move. I think that's an absolutely wrong move.
SPEAKER_01Like she might be the tie-in between the current MCU to where we're retconning it in the future.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think she may be one of the point of view X-Men characters like in the film. And I don't think that that's gonna be the right move at all. Yeah. Because it she's she's historically not an X-Men where X-Men fans identify with Miss Marvel as an X-Men. That's not something that, you know, long time X-Men fans, 30, 40-year X-Men, 50-year X-Men fans will say, okay, yeah, Miss Marvel, yeah, recognizable X-Men. I gotta go see this movie. It's X-Men, I gotta go. No, that's not gonna work. You gotta have the characters that have been connected to the X-Men since the X-Men, since like day one, right? You can't do it through Miss Marvel. It's just not gonna work. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree with you there. I I think you have to have one of the core X-Men be your POV. Like I said, maybe maybe be it Nightcrawler. It could, it could be Iceman. It could be, it could be Angel too. You know, Warren Worthington III, he's got a ton of money, right? So he he's, you know, I don't I don't know what happens after Secret War Doomsday, but he's spending all this money like trying to figure out what happened with this incursion thing, and he finds out the there's this group of hidden heroes called the X-Men that have been uh around and he figures it out and he finds his way in that way. But I think the POV character has got to be somebody not associated with the MCU. It's got to be somebody within the X-Men now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, totally agree, totally agree. And I think what they're gonna do is they're gonna look at the data that they have and they're gonna figure out I think right now they're debating whether Wolverine is gonna be one of those characters. I really do. I feel like that's a debate that's ongoing. And I think with the success of Deadpool and Wolverine, that's clear data that says that that might be the right decision, but also the fact that, you know, the first X-Men movie, he was a POV character. He was driving the story with Rogue, right? And the first X-Men movie did really well. So, what data points do we have? The only the only X-Men story we have on screen that did not put Wolverine front and center was X-Men 97, which did excellent. Like that show did excellent. It was critically acclaimed, the fans love it. So, yes, maybe you could push Storm into the POV character role. Maybe that can be done. But as far as like what do we have the most data on, that's Wolverine. Wolverine's one of the most recognizable characters on the planet. He's up there now, probably close to Batman, probably close to Spider-Man, probably close to Superman. Right? Let's just face facts. That's probably the case at this point. Whether they do it or not is going to be determined about how how Hollywood feels collectively about putting a 40, a 30, 30 to 40 year old white man into the leading role of this X-Men movie. Like it's literally a living allegory for the marginalized. So do we lead with the 40-year-old typical white guy? Or do you just you know, do you do an updated version of Wolverine? Like, does he get the Johnny Storm treatment to get past the to get past the judges?
SPEAKER_01That's why I was saying that's why I was saying the the gutsy move is not have Wolverine at all. Don't put him in the first movie, put him in the second movie.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, don't no, don't do that because you need this movie to be commercially successful. And I don't think you are commercially successful without you know putting these guys at the top of the pile. Like, yeah, but unless that Wolverine is Hugh Jackman, nobody's gonna care. That's not true. That's not true at all because Wolverine is such a universal character where okay, so let me put it this way if you put together a trailer with the new Wolverine, and that Wolverine can sell that trailer, can sell the new version of Wolverine in that trailer to the audience, that audience is gonna fall in love with that version of Wolverine because everybody loves Wolverine. There's very few people that don't like Wolverine. The only people that don't like Wolverine, funny enough, are Marvel writers, which is hilarious. But but at the end of the day, like I think that he's sort of gonna be very core to whether this movie is a success or not. Now, the Miss Marvel thing, I think is gonna be the thing that either makes or breaks this thing. I think they need to really take a hard look and say, listen, okay, I know we've invested time and money into putting Miss Marvel into the scope of the X-Men, the scope of putting her into the scope of the mutants. But if we do this, if we put her front and center in this new X-Men movie, is she gonna be able to hold the tension and is she gonna be able to drive the box office? And I think they already have a box office with her name on it that already tells them that that's probably not the case.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, this this movie is gonna be focus grouped to an inch of its life. I mean from from script all the way down to first looks, it's it's just gonna be focus grouped to death, which is why I'm afraid that you know, when you do that, then it's gonna call for like reshoots and and then it's just gonna be this like mishmash of trying to trying to please everyone. And and I and I think you're not gonna be able to do that. What have we seen in in the MCU that's just that you can tell it was like focus grouped? What do you think? A movie that that was just focusing or even a TV show that was just like focus grouped to to within a dynch of its life.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I don't know. I would say maybe Brave New World got pretty focused grouped to death.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because I think they wanted to do I think they wanted to do a story that was closer to Israel. And yeah, that got focus grouped out, as well as that happened with Superman as well. So I would say that Brave New World's probably the best example of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just don't want X-Men to do that. I I want some I I want some gutsy storytelling to happen. Me too. If you do have Wolverine in the first movie, I don't do like you did in Brave New World and show him. Have him be the have him be the thing that people talk about leaving the theater. So you you show like the the core X-Men that people might expect, like what the the ones we were talking about. And then people are maybe expecting Wolverine, but aren't they? I don't think they get away with that.
SPEAKER_00I don't think they get away with that. I don't think you get away with an X-Men trailer without leading with your best. I think there's gotta be one trailer or there's gotta be some. The audience has to have some impression that Wolverine is like if they want Wolverine, the audience has to have some impression that he's in the story, that he's been cast. There's gotta be something there. Because I don't see I don't see MCU audiences showing up for the original X-Men. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong, and I'm gonna say maybe I'm wrong based on the response to X-Men 97, who you know strongly put Cyclops in the center of everything, which which which he did look, and you know, the character did really well with fans. The character did phenomenally well with fans in X-Men 97. So maybe you can make the case that you don't need Wolverine. But I'm just gonna say that I'm just gonna say data supports Wolverine.
SPEAKER_01I'm just gonna say first class didn't have Wolverine. They had him in a fun little cameo, which was hilarious, I thought, but they didn't have him in there, and it was fine. It was a really in fact, they didn't really have him through that whole series from X-Men First Class, Age, well, yeah, Age of Apocalypse. What was the next one? Age of Apocalypse was the last one, but X-Men First Class, they didn't they didn't have him in there. But I mean that but then you know it made sense that there was or that you didn't need a Wolverine to to to charge a movie to lead the movie. And and and it was fine. First class was great, age of apocalypse, not so much, but first class was great. I I loved it. And I didn't even miss Wolverine. In fact, when I saw him in the cameo, you know, when I saw the trailers, like, oh, there's no Wolverine, it's a it's a new group of X-Men, gonna be great. And then they showed the cameo, perfect, perfect casting, perfect, perfect way to do that. But I don't know. I I just don't think you wanna I get the butts in seats theory of you want butts and seats, you put Wolverine in the movie, right? That's that's the easy way to do it. But I always I look at first class and you didn't need to. You tell a good story and you don't need Wolverine, but you I I feel like you save him for like a post-credit scene where you see an arm and then you hear this the snick and then everybody goes nuts. And then would you agree?
SPEAKER_00But would you agree that Wolverine is a natural character development tool for other characters? Like he almost you almost put him into a situation and he drives every other character around him because of how off-putting and how awkward he makes his presence be within whatever situation he is. Like, yeah, you know, he's not a team player, he doesn't play along.
SPEAKER_01Yep, right, doesn't play well, doesn't play nice with the other kids, right? And and he's a loner, so he learns the value of teamwork and family, and yeah, you know, the real power was all of us all along, you know, that sort of thing. So yeah, he's he's he's a great vehicle to give that kind of arc to. But I mean, X-Men by definition are are somewhat isolated and introverted because of the nature of who they are. So you get a bunch of misfits together like that, and and they all can have that story arc. Right. So to say Wolverine has to be in the first movie, I don't I don't think it I don't think it's the case. I don't think you have to do that again. First class is proof of concept that you don't have to have a Wolverine in the first movie for it to be good and for people to identify with the characters and to love the characters all over again because you cast strong people in the other roles and you're not gonna miss it. Like Michael Fastbender and Xavier, they they did really they were great as Magneto and Xavier.
SPEAKER_00Yep, fantastic.
SPEAKER_01So they were very strong and in leading that group. Um and and not do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fastbender is amazing. Yeah, amazing. Okay, we we didn't talk about villains. So is it confirmed that Sinister is gonna be the villain for this X-Men movie?
SPEAKER_01Oh man, I don't know. I haven't read. I I just read that we have a director. I mean, we haven't even they haven't even talked about the lineup, but I have heard rumors that it was sinister. Yeah, rumors are sinister, and the fan casting for that is John Hamm?
SPEAKER_00John Ham would be amazing sinister.
SPEAKER_01John John Ham's good. He is good.
SPEAKER_00John Hamm would be an amazing sinister for sure. Because like I think of him in the doctor, I I think of him in the um the doctor role in Sucker Punch when he shows up at the end. Oh, right, yeah. He was just so unnerving, but also just so charming. He would he would kill that role.
SPEAKER_01I'm just picturing him in the white makeup in that crazy Mr. Sinister costume, and I'm like, oh John Ham, you look ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, well, I think that I think they'd have to tone it down a bit. Like, you know, I think I think there's some truth to the yellow spandex joke in the first X-Men movie. Yeah, yeah. Like, but you know what? When they when they did that cutaway scene in was it Apocalypse where they were in the danger room and they were in their and they were in their costumes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Was it apocalypse?
SPEAKER_01I think so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Like Nightcrawler was in his red and black and Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Those actually looked kind of dope. Like they did not look as half as bad as I thought they would. True, true. Yeah, he wore the yellow screen. I don't think true.
SPEAKER_01But they they were right in in 2000, though, that I don't think the world was ready for that yet. True. So the black, the the black spandex in the first X-Men movie was perfect for that setting. You're trying to make a grounded, realistic X-Men movie. The last thing you want to do is put him in in yellow spandex and blue spandex. Yeah, but we it would have taken you right out.
SPEAKER_00Well, we were coming off of Blade and Underworld and all these movies where people were just fighting in black leather all the time.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Matrix, Matrix.
SPEAKER_00Everyone's like, what are we gonna fight in? Black leather. Black leather painted. Black leather. We're gonna fight in black leather. So yeah, I kind of see why they went in that direction with the sort of the black stealth suit kind of look, you know. But but yeah, no, they can pull it off. Yeah, they proved it in Deadpool and Wolverine. They can they can definitely pull it off. Yep, yep. So yeah, let's see it. Yeah, you yeah, let's see them go costume accurate. I don't think they'll go so far as to do a Mr. Sinister costume accurate. That's a little much.
SPEAKER_01That would look ridiculous on stream. That's like a picture in my mind, and it looks ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00That's like straight out of the Fort Lauderdale Pride Parade. Like, let's let's let's be real, right? Like that's like a whole different that's a whole different ballgame. Would you be happy with Sinister or would you want a different villain?
SPEAKER_01I like Sinister. Sinister, his run in the X-Men animated series was really good. And I think I think Sinister playing with DNA. And do you write in the clone of Gene Gray into that one? I mean, I don't know. I think you save that for the second movie. That's why I was saying Gene Gray. Don't put Gene Gray in the first one, put her in the second one. But Sinister, I mean, we've seen Kevin Bacon play Sinister um in X-Men First Class. So he wouldn't know Sebastian Shaw. Oh, Sebastian Shaw, that's right.
SPEAKER_00My bad. From the Hellfire Club.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Hellfire Club. But um, yeah, I think Sinister would would make a good one because we've seen Magneto a lot, right? And then again, if you play Magneto, you're you're gonna draw the comparisons to Ian McKellen. Uh oh shit, that's the story. Yeah, nobody wants that. What's that?
SPEAKER_00They should do the Hellfire Club. You could have like these rich elite assholes who are mutants, and then you could have the X-Men who are mutants, and that could be that could be a really cool dynamic, actually. That could be really awesome. Like they've got control, like you know what I mean? They have like a system of control, banks and money power politics. Money, power, politics, yeah, all that shit. And then the X-Men are just sort of the you know, the antidote. Like, yeah, that could be that could be sick. That could be really, really cool. I would love to see something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because so mutants were always there, but hidden behind money, power, and politics.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but yes, yes. Or you know what they could do? They could make it something that the elite started doing out of experimentation, like having enhanced abilities.
SPEAKER_01Some some rich guy got a cop chopper out to uh the celestial island, grabbed some samples of stuff, and then you know, brought it back to his all all of his rich friends and started experimenting.
SPEAKER_00That's the way in. That's the way in. That that that that's definitely the way in. And Charles Xavier could have sort of been within that circle at the beginning, and he's like, Hey, I don't really like what I'm seeing over here. You're splintering off. Yep. I'm splintering off, I'm doing my own thing. And then he goes out and he either, you know, discovers that there's more people that have been affected by this phenomena or whatever. But yeah, that actually may be the way in. That's that's actually really cool and really interesting.
SPEAKER_01And then you have Sinister, the head of that DNA experimentation within the Hellfire Club. You have to rewrite Sinister into the Hellfire Club, but there you go.
SPEAKER_00That could actually work. Yeah, that could actually work. I think we I think we just made the X-Men movie, buddy. I think we just finished it right there.
SPEAKER_01And then John Hamm, and then John Hamm kind of reprises his character from Mad Men from the advertising standpoint. It's like, look, here's how you do it, you know? So just a darker side of that character.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, we started talking about this first, but I wanted to come back to it. Or we started talking about this earlier, but wanting to come back to it. Who who are you building your X-Men movie around? Tell me some things about the story that you want to that you would like to see.
SPEAKER_01If I'm going with the theory of they've always been there, then I'm I'm probably looking at at a young kid that or or maybe somebody that was blipped, right? That was blipped out in the snap and then came back. And then when they when they came back, something happened to them. So I'm it could be any of them, any of them. Like a terragen thing. Yeah, like a terrigen thing. So whatever happened in the five years in that whatever pocket universe they were in, something happened, and it could be And this could be a great way to explain all the X-Men is they were blipped, it was the the 50% that were blipped out. And then when they blip back, some of them came back with powers, right? That works. And so it could be, you know, Warren Worthington. Um, he was he was blipped out and then he blipped back five years later, and he now has wings and he's trying to figure out what happened. So he uses the money and resources, tries to figure out what happened to him, and then he runs into what we talked about the Hellfire Club. And then something happened there with Sinister, and he flies out and Charles finds him, and then they together try to find like individuals that happen. They compare storage and like, oh yeah, that happened to me too. Let's find some of these other people. And then, you know, from the blip forward, so you kind of have to fast forward through through some of that because a lot's happened since since the blip. And then, you know, that that would be kind of your your way in, is is I think the snap is kind of like the the BC A D of the MCU. It's like, you know, that that had such a ramification in the history of the MCU that I think anything this momentous of the X-Men were always there has to happen then. That easily explains why they weren't there pre-blip and why they're there now post-blip. And you know, you can only tell so many stories post-blip, and the it just wasn't one of those stories that was told. But now this is the chance to tell that story through flashbacks of what happened post-blip, kind of like what Black Widow did when Yelena rematerialized and off we went with the Black Widow story. Right. So you kind of have to, and if you're playing the nostalgia card for a lot of people to try to remember the heyday of the MCU, that's a great place to do it. So I think any of those X-Men, Warren Worthington, I think he can even be Nightcrawler, comes back, or he he gets blipped out as a normal person, comes back as this blue devil looking thing, and he's dealing with the ramifications of that and hiding out. And then Charles finds him, and then off to the races we go with that story. And then they find that they're doing experimentation. Mr. Sinister's got some stuff off of Celestial Island and they're doing experimentation, and they're like, no, this is not we can't be doing that. You're you're killing people and you're you're creating enemies and all that stuff. So and then that's why you're fighting over the you know mutant uh people that are creating mutants and ones that have come back from the blip as mutants. Yeah. So something something like that. Interesting. So I'm I'm horrible at that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_00No, no, that no, I no, I think you actually did a pretty good job there, man. Like I would definitely watch that movie. That sounds pretty good to me, dude. Um, so for me, it's it's definitely a Wolverine or Nightcrawler focused type of story. Uh, I think I think the Hellfire Club is the way in now. Like after I said that, I was I've just I've been I've been just as I've been listening to you, my other part of my brain has just been writing a Hellfire Club-oriented X-Men movie. And I just see a thousand ways in now. Like, if you tie, if you tie Sinister into the Hellfire Club, I think the movie just builds itself. Like you could actually start the movie right there. The Hellfire Club could actually be an organization that's been dedicated to keeping mutants secret the entire time because it's their power and it's something that they've discovered and they don't want anybody else to know about it. So they've been suppressing other mutants and they've been suppressing, you know, other groups sort of like theirs or killing off other groups like theirs. And Charles Xavier is already part of that group. And then what happens is like gets to a point where he can't take it anymore. He splinters off and he's like, okay, I need to go do something different. I'm going to start trying to serve humanity. Maybe he's inspired by the Avengers. That's kind of where I would go with it, is like he sees the events of Endgame and Infinity War. He reads about it, he sees it in the media, and he's sort of inspired by it. And the Hellfire Club continues to be who they are, you know, elite assholes who have, you know, money power, you know, control the government, control of many governments. You know, they're basically power brokers and sort of the puppet masters of the world. I think that that could be a really sick way to tell this story. And uh, you know, maybe Wolverine is somewhere tied to one of the government agencies that he used to work with when we meet him. And Nightcrawler is sort of maybe more of a like a casual, you know, kind of situation where he's just a kind of duck out of water type of scenario. But the one thing I hope that they get right about the X-Men movies is that they don't go hard on the humor. Just let the characters breathe, let the character development breathe. I think Jake Schreier has got the right sensibilities if he's going to explore this. So I feel pretty confident going into it, but this is where I think the story jumps off from. It's either hellfire and sinister or it's Krakoa, but it all has to do it. The precursor is all the blip and all the celestial and all the energy that's been sort of passed around since since Infinity War. You can't have all that kind of energy passing around, have nothing, nothing greater happen from it. Right. It just doesn't make any sense. So why not lean into it, right?
SPEAKER_01I like the I like the hellfire club angle because class separation is is a is a big thing now. Exactly. So your villain, your villains could easily be, you know, rich entitled assholes, and people are gonna identify with that. And people are gonna be like, yeah, you know, it's the Jeff Bezos of the world that are getting together as these elites, and you're like, okay, we're only gonna give certain people powers, right? Or and then it all goes wrong or or whatnot. Yeah, so I I think that's a a great way in that people can immediately identify, even though when it's coming out in 2028, I I don't think this class kind of warfare thing in our society is gonna go away anytime soon. And and you that's uh that's an easy to identify with. Yeah, and and people will will immediately find the the good guys and side with the good guys on that one.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I'll put that in. Yeah, I think that'll work, man. I really do. I hope uh I hope Jake Schreier sees this because it's it's a great idea. It's how it's how I would write it. Like it's definitely how I would write it. Like I would start at the Hellfire Club and Sinister and then figure out how to build the heroes around that. Like, I think that's your foundation because it just writes itself. Like you write like their roles write themselves. So you just have to write the reaction to those roles. You don't need to write, you know, you don't need to write from the hero first. You can you can set up the villain and just have the have the hero have the X-Men be the reactionary, like in like in that story, right? And there's a lot of ways you can come at that. You know, Wolverine's a government agent who's seen too much and maybe they try and kill him off. I don't know. Nightcrawler, again, it just could be a duck out of water situation. Maybe he gets invited to perform at the Hellfire Club and and it, you know, or maybe he's like, maybe they have their own circus and he's just like locked up in a cage and he gets rescued. There's a lot of really cool ways to come at this. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of really cool, cool, awesome ways to come at this. But yeah, I think it goes Hellfire Club, Sinister, Charles Xavier, Charles Xavier like, you know, breaks off and says, I want to do my own thing. It's just he just he's morally, he's just morally against what's happening and he wants to do something different. And maybe he's inspired by the Avengers, etc. Like, I think that's that's the way to go, man. I really do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And he hasn't built Cerebro yet, so he can only use his his tele uh telepathy to find just like the ones that are within, you know, a 10 block radius of where he's at of like local local X-Men, and that's where you get like, you know, the ones that are Warren Worthington easily could be uh a Manhattan rich kid, right? And and and everybody could have their home base like in New York. Um that's who he finds first. And then at the end of it, he's like, we need to find others, and then that's when Cerebro gets built. And then then you find the Gene Grays and the and the uh Wolverines of the world. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But here's the thing Miss Marvel could fuck up this entire thing. Maybe Miss Marvel is one that he finds first.
SPEAKER_01Maybe he finds finds Miss Marvel in Jersey City.
SPEAKER_00Why couldn't you just leave her as an inhuman? Like, I don't I don't get it. Like, like I just feel like they're just trying to like force her onto us. Like it's like, okay, you know, you guys really like the X-Men. Well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna force Miss Marvel into the X-Men. She tests well across all demographics. She's great. Listen, I love Amon Velani. I think that she's one of the best hires that Marvel has ever made as far as casting goes. Yeah, she's us, she like she's the fan, like she's the fan inside, and I love her. I think she's great, but I don't see I don't like the way they're trying to fit this character into this world, man. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Like, just let Miss Marvel be your like just let Miss Marvel be fucking Miss Marvel. Like, yeah, I would go see a Miss Marvel movie. I would watch another season of Miss Marvel, but this just does not track for me. I don't know. But anyways, um, all right. Well, guys, listen, thank you so much for tuning in. Rich I this is great, man. It's a lot of fun. I really like I had a really fun, fun time diving into this. I love Permanent. We hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we do, or we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Sorry. If you want to find us on socials, Cordalore HQ, uh pretty much everywhere Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok. We've got videos, we got clips from episodes like everywhere right now. We've had like 40,000 impressions over like the last two weeks. It's been it's been nuts. It's been nuts. But if you've been watching this show and asking yourself whether you should watch the next episode, go check our receipts. Just just just go watch those videos. Those are our receipts. They speak for themselves. I think that you guys are really enjoying coming back to this show, and uh, we'll continue to give you the best that we got. But this was a lot of fun. Court adjourned, I'm Frank McGuire. I'm Rich Carrera.