Now that the writers’ strike has ended, the major studios are focusing again on on their potential blockbusters, such as 20th Century Fox’s eagerly awaited X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Hollywood Reporter brings word that the studio has added Danny Huston (30 Days of Night), Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas and Lynn Collins (The Number 23) to the cast, which will be led by Hugh Jackman, playing a slightly younger version of the blade-weilding mutant he played in the three previous X-Men films.
Based on Marvel’s long-running X-Men comic-book series, Wolverine will take place 17 years before the events in the first X-Men movie, which director Bryan Singer brought to the screen in 2000. Prior to that, the comic property had been adapted for television with a 1992 Fox Kids animated series co-produced by Marvel Ent. and Saban Ent. Marvel later teamed with animation house Film Roman for the 2000 toon series X-Men: Evolution.
As the title suggests, the Wolverine movie will focus on the origin of the popular character, a truck driver whose bones are altered by a metalic substance in a medical experiment led by William Stryker, played by Brian Cox in X2: X-Men United. Huston will play a younger version of the character in the new film, which is being directed by Gavin Hood (Rendition, Tsotsi). Kitsch has been cast as Gambit, a Cajun thief with kinetic powers and a penchant for throwing cards with deadly accuracy, while will.i.am takes on the role of Wraith, who can make himself translucent. Collins will play Wolverine’s love interest, a mutant named Kayla Silverfox, and Ryan Reynolds (Blade: Trinity) returns to the Marvel universe in a cameo role playing wisecracking mercenary Deadpool.
The new cast members join a growing troupe that includes Liev Schreiber (The Omen) as Victor Creed, a.k.a. Sabretooth. Production is now underway in New Zealand and will move to locations in Australia and New Orleans. The film is slated to hit theaters on May 1, 2009.
