Marvel Studios finally put names to its long-rumored X-Men reboot at D23 on Friday night, closing out the studio’s Disney Entertainment Showcase presentation with a cast reveal seven years in the making. Director Jake Schreier’s untitled X-Men film opens in theaters exclusively on May 5, 2028, Kevin Feige confirmed onstage, marking the first X-Men movie made under the Marvel Studios banner since Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, a milestone Forbes noted places the film directly after next year’s “Avengers: Secret Wars” on the studio’s release calendar.
Sadie Sink, who debuted as Jean Grey earlier this month in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” led the cast onstage and was joined one by one by her new co-stars: Kit Connor as Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops; Christopher Abbott as Professor Charles Xavier; Samara Weaving as Emma Frost; Inde Navarrette as Rogue; and Maya Boyd as Storm, according to the studio’s own recap posted on Marvel.com. Adam Driver capped the reveal with a video appearance, confirming he’ll play Nathaniel Essex, the villain better known to comics readers as Mister Sinister.
Driver had reportedly been circling the franchise for some time before Friday’s announcement. Speaking about the decision, he told the crowd, “Kevin and I have been talking for years about me joining MCU,” before describing landing on a character he connected with on a personal level, comments The Hollywood Reporter carried from the panel. Schreier, who previously directed Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*,” takes on a franchise that ran for thirteen films at Fox between 2000 and 2019, anchored by Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry, and traces back to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original 1963 comic.
Notably absent from the lineup: Wolverine, Magneto, Beast and several other franchise mainstays, an omission Kotaku flagged as leaving open the question of whether the new film will build its story around Professor X and Magneto’s long-running ideological conflict at all, or save those characters, and that dynamic, for a later chapter. MovieWeb points out the reveal follows months of scattered reporting, including an earlier, unconfirmed report that Weaving had been cast as Frost, which Friday’s announcement finally made official alongside the rest of the ensemble.
The cast reveal was one of several major Marvel moments at this year’s D23, which runs through the weekend in Anaheim, according to a recap from The Playlist. ABC News and IMDb both confirmed the full list of roles shortly after the panel wrapped, cementing the cast as Marvel’s most significant new-franchise announcement since the studio began publicly plotting its post-“Secret Wars” slate.
For now, Marvel has offered no title beyond “X-Men,” no plot details, and no confirmation of when filming begins, leaving the reveal itself, seven major cast members deep into a fresh ensemble, as the headline out of Anaheim.
