Okay, so the news that Rose Byrne is close to signing onto Matthew Vaughn’s soft reboot of Fox’s X-Men movie franchise as Moira McTaggart, Professor Xavier’s one-time love, doesn’t really bother me; for a movie that’s rumored to draw from the Chris Claremont/John Byrne-era of the comic to tell the history of Xavier’s relationship with former-best-friend-turned-mortal-enemy Magneto, it only makes sense to include their character in there somewhere. Similarly, the addition of Oliver Platt as mysterious new character The Man In Black sounds promising, if only because Platt usually brings some level of class and detached amusement to his roles, even if I was previously unaware of Johnny Cash’s mutant powers.
But Jason Flemyng joining the cast to play the demonic Azazel, father of Nightcrawler? I am most definitely not on board with this development one bit. For one thing, Nightcrawler only made it into one X-Men movie (even if he was one of the best things in it), so he’s hardly a mover and shaker large enough to earn a role for his dad in the prequel, and for two, didn’t everyone hate the storyline in which Nightcrawler was revealed to be the son of a demon, thereby explaining his demonic appearance? Why make the same mistake in the movies, especially when absolutely no-one is demanding it?
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