Fox is clearly trying to skew the new X-men movie extra young by casting 31-year-old James McAvoy (right) as Professor X, which makes me wonder just how young Kitty Pryde is going to be? In X-3, Pryde was played by a then 19-year-old Ellen Page while the Professor was a 64-year-old Patrick Stewart. According to a May 27 report in the LA Times, McAvoy is the only member of the new X-men who has been cast in the new flick, set to be directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass).
Vaughn also directed the slightly childish 2007 sci-fi movie Stardust, which was based on the excellent “story book with pictures” written by Neil Gaiman with illustrations by Charles Vess in 1998.
The film, called X-Men: First Class, is expected to release in June 2011. Like 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, First Class will be an origin story going back to the beginnings of the X-Men, back when it was just Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr instead of Professor X and Magneto.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.