A Trio of Hero's set to join the cast of X3.

[UN Spacy]

It's been expected Gambit and Beast would be in the next "X-Men" movie, now AICN has published a report indicating "BEAST will be joining the X-Men...GAMBIT will indeed be part of the film this time around, and expect them to cast a fairly big name in the role...ANGEL will be in the movie. But ANGEL... will be a girl".

That report was followed up a few hours later by IGN FilmForce who were advised that Angel (a.k.a. Warren Worthington III) will be male and a "major character" as will Beast. Gambit will only be a small part. Beast will be seen in his transformed state and will be played by a different actor than Steve Bacic, who cameoed as Hank McCoy in X2.

Their sources also confirm Cyclops is still in the movie but not as a major character.

[Graham]

Always thought Gambit was a stupid chacacter, so I'm glad he's only getting a small role in X3.

I mean exploding playing cards....yeah right! Have you tried throwing a playing card? It travels about 3-4 feet at best. Hardly the ideal weapon.

Graham

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

Always thought Gambit was a stupid chacacter, so I'm glad he's only getting a small role in X3.

I mean exploding playing cards....yeah right! Have you tried throwing a playing card? It travels about 3-4 feet at best. Hardly the ideal weapon.

Graham

he doesn't make just cards blow up...i think he can do it to just about anything too...not sure about living things tho (thus the reason why i said "i think..")

[JB0]

Always thought Gambit was a stupid chacacter, so I'm glad he's only getting a small role in X3.

I mean exploding playing cards....yeah right! Have you tried throwing a playing card? It travels about 3-4 feet at best. Hardly the ideal weapon.

Graham

You can get decent distance if you flick them right.

Besides, they're super-powered playing cards. May as well give him a playing card railgun.

[yellowlightman]

I never understood how popular the X-Men movies were, they were ridiculously vapid little movies that everyone seemed to LOVE.

If the world's greatest comic book in thw rodl (Judge Dredd) can't be made in to a decent movie, what's the point?

[Guest Bromgrev]

IMO the Xmen movies are the only successful comic-to-movie adaptions ever. In fact, I think they improve on the comic in a lot of ways (what, you'd prefer yellow lycra?), and the casting is fantastic.

Gambit sucks, though.

[Akilae]

IMO the Xmen movies are the only successful comic-to-movie adaptions ever. In fact, I think they improve on the comic in a lot of ways (what, you'd prefer yellow lycra?), and the casting is fantastic.

Gambit sucks, though.

The only successful adaptation? How about Spider-Man? I thought that was fairly well done.

[Skull Leader]

I never understood how popular the X-Men movies were, they were ridiculously vapid little movies that everyone seemed to LOVE.

If the world's greatest comic book in thw rodl (Judge Dredd) can't be made in to a decent movie, what's the point?

I'd say that's highly subjective. I loved both X-men movies. I thought a good job was done in converting them from the comic book to the silver screen. Sure I'd love to see more of some of the other X-men that weren't really shown (my favorite X-man, Colossus, only got a few seconds of screentime in the second one), but I understand budget limitations are at work here.

Both of the movies did well at the box office and again on rental/DVD sales, so I wouldn't exactly call them "Vapid", but a "success".

UN, was there any info on whether or not Colossus would be a bigger player in this movie?

Edited March 18, 2005 by Skull Leader

[terry the lone wolf]

It's been expected Gambit and Beast would be in the next "X-Men" movie, now AICN has published a report indicating "BEAST will be joining the X-Men...GAMBIT will indeed be part of the film this time around, and expect them to cast a fairly big name in the role...ANGEL will be in the movie. But ANGEL... will be a girl".

That report was followed up a few hours later by IGN FilmForce who were advised that Angel (a.k.a. Warren Worthington III) will be male and a "major character" as will Beast. Gambit will only be a small part. Beast will be seen in his transformed state and will be played by a different actor than Steve Bacic, who cameoed as Hank McCoy in X2.

Their sources also confirm Cyclops is still in the movie but not as a major character.

Cyclops won't be a major character?!!! That's crazy; he's the leader for Christsakes! Also, if they're going to adapt "The Dark Phoenix Saga" Cyclops's love for Jean Grey played a pivotal part in the series. It wasn't a love story about Wolverine and Jean.

Edited March 18, 2005 by terry the lone wolf

[lt.actionjackson]

I agree that Cyclops has to have a large role in the movie. How do you do the Dark Phoenix Saga without Cyclops? Cyclops is a big part of Jean's life. Are they going to rewrite history and make this another Wolverine centered movie? If they can't get Mardsen when they need him because of his commitment to the Superman project, just push the project off for another summer.

[ChrisG]

That's pretty unrealistic to expect Fox to push it off for another year because they can't get Marsden. Fox is hellbent on getting the movie out by summer 2006, even though filming hasn't even started yet. If they wait another year, it's likely that more important people like Jackman, Stewart, and McKellen will be busy with other projects.

[lt.actionjackson]

Unrealisitc, or greedy? I'm voting for greedy. And maybe even vengeance against their former director for jumping ship and going to the Superman project. Isn't Superman slated to open in the summer of 2006?

[Blaine23]

I honestly don't have much faith at all in the X-Men franchise without Singer, but I'm curious to see what they do with it.

And I've never been a Gambit fan, either. I live a few hours from Nawlins and Gambit's dialect is about as overdone as one can get. He didn't show up in the comics until I was through collecting X-Men anyway.

However, apparently some people can use cards as weapons fairly well. Magician/actor Ricky Jay (card dealer in HBO's Deadwood) used to hold the Guinness World Record for being able to throw a card 190 feet at 90 miles per hour. That's kinda scary. He also could throw a card into a Watermelon from 10 paces.

Ricky Jay on Wikipedia

He wrote a whole book called "Cards As Weapons".

This site shows the basics - Scans from Cards As Weapons

It seems like the kind of thing I might get around to trying to learn if I were incarcerated and had nothing but time and cards. I'd learn that and the harmonica, too.

[mikeszekely]

I honestly don't have much faith at all in the X-Men franchise without Singer, but I'm curious to see what they do with it.

And I've never been a Gambit fan, either. I live a few hours from Nawlins and Gambit's dialect is about as overdone as one can get. He didn't show up in the comics until I was through collecting X-Men anyway.

However, apparently some people can use cards as weapons fairly well. Magician/actor Ricky Jay (card dealer in HBO's Deadwood) used to hold the Guinness World Record for being able to throw a card 190 feet at 90 miles per hour. That's kinda scary. He also could throw a card into a Watermelon from 10 paces.

Ricky Jay on Wikipedia

He wrote a whole book called "Cards As Weapons".

This site shows the basics - Scans from Cards As Weapons

It seems like the kind of thing I might get around to trying to learn if I were incarcerated and had nothing but time and cards. I'd learn that and the harmonica, too.

Learning to throw cards as weapons is something I'd imagine would be cool to do. But, checking out the excerpts from the book, it looks drier than that one macroeconomics class I took...

As for X3, I'm taking a wait and see approach. Singer did an excellent job with the first two, but I'm not going to say that he's the only one that can direct and X-Men movie until others try their hands and fail. Also, Cyclops being a minor character doesn't mean that he can't be in a big scene with Jean (he was a minor character in X2, and still had a nice scene with Jean at the end). And just because the movie will take elemenst from the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas, I don't expect them to be spot-on. The fact that Beast and Angel (although I liked him better as Archangel) are going to be major characters is good to hear. Hopefully, this will mean the movie will be more "X-Men" and less "Wolverine and Some X-Men."

[fulcy]

IMO the Xmen movies are the only successful comic-to-movie adaptions ever. In fact, I think they improve on the comic in a lot of ways (what, you'd prefer yellow lycra?), and the casting is fantastic.

Gambit sucks, though.

The only successful adaptation? How about Spider-Man? I thought that was fairly well done.

Don't forget Hellboy...

[Limbo]

The Mythbusters show on the Discovery channel covered this throwing card thing. They created a machine to whip the cards around at great speeds. They concluded it was unlikely you could kill someone this way...

[CoryHolmes]

The Mythbusters show on the Discovery channel covered this throwing card thing. They created a machine to whip the cards around at great speeds. They concluded it was unlikely you could kill someone this way...

Yes, but they never covered what would happen if said card exploded upon contact...

[Chronocidal]

Or, if you just happened to be a good enough shot to nail a carotid artery, although that's really pushing it.

[Blaine23]

I never said card throwing could actually kill somebody...

But it could break the skin and leave a nasty welt.

[jardann]

This could definitely work out. I always thought of Gambit as a flash in the pan character but he can produce some good moments.

As for Marsden I think he has been the worst actor and Cyclops the worst character in the movies so far. (although I do think that the character was treated correctly Cyclops is a very one dimensional character) I wouldn't miss it if he was out entirely.

I also think that they should hold off on the Dark Phoenix story until the next movie and they should probably give Magneto a break as well. Let's see a different villain for now. The X-Men don't only fight Magneto you know.

Trying to constantly cram too much (two villains and a love story) into one movie is what nearly killed the Batman movies IMO.

[lt.actionjackson]

My wife really enjoyed X2 so I briefed her on X3 some time ago and told her about Dark Phoenix. She scrunched up her face and said "She can eat stars?!?!" Lately I've been wondering how they plan to pull this off in the movie without only catering to fan boys. I'm sure the joe shmo target demographic will get off the train once she starts consuming star systems.

[Golden Arms]

Gambits power isn't only throwing cards. His real ability is to charge inanimate objects with kinetic energy, which results in explosions. The larger the object, the larger the explosion. Thats why he uses the playing cards. There small, easy to manipulate (charge) and you have alot of potential weapons in a single deck of cards. I hope they include the Hellfire Club in the next film. You can't tell the Dark Phoenix story without them. I wonder who is going to direct X3. I loved Singers work, but I think their is plenty to work with that someone else can come along and do as well as him. I think that he did fail in some areas though. He never really captured the team aspect of the characters in either film. They weren't really shown as a team in battle complementing each other. I also thought the uniforms were way too drab.

[ManxoChu]

I don't think the 'star consumption' aspect of the Dark Phoenix will be introduced. The X-Men movies seem to working quite well without there being visitors from other planets/galaxies. My guess is that the movie version of Dark Phoenix will be a dramatic mutation (pun semi-intended) on Jean's powers; a change great enough that it'll affect Jean's personality giving us the Dark Phoenix we all wouldn't want unleashed upon our beloved dirtball. It's enough that the mutant variable is in the X movies, but to include ET-type variables? That's what'll turn off the non-fans so I wouldn't expect ET's, humanoid or otherwise, in the next X-Film.

[ComicKaze]

How can they have the Phoenix Saga and Jean Grey without Cyclops in a major role?

And X2 majorly pissed me off when Colossus didn't have a Russian accent.

[Wes]

The Cyclops-thing I think is a sign of the obvious - how can they possibly get in all the X-Men there are, even a good amount, and have them contribute significantly to a story lasting only 100 minutes? I think the limits of the movie-format don't translate well to a comic that's had hundreds of issues.