Ancil
According to reports, the X-Men’s next Professor X will be cast using a different method by Marvel Studios. For Avengers: Doomsday, Fox’s X-Men star Patrick Stewart will play Charles Xavier again, but the MCU is also preparing for its own X-Men revival, with other stars already being touted to be Marvel’s next mutants.
Casting rumors are already taking over industry headlines, even though the MCU’s X-Men project isn’t anticipated until after 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars and the end of the Multiverse Saga. The casting craze has raised many questions about who Marvel Studios is considering for the role of Professor X, the X-Men’s founder and a formidable telepath. According to recent reports, the MCU is reportedly considering “Black actors” for this typically white character.
According to industry insider Jeff Sneider (via John Rocha’s The Hot Mic), when discussing casting rumors for Marvel Studios’ X-Men reboot, “I continue to hear Black actors for Charles [Xavier]:”
“I continue to hear Black actors for Charles [Xavier]. I think that could be… especially with a white director, because I really thought it was going to be a Black director on this, but I wonder if that’s the direction that Marvel wants to sort of take and to differentiate its Charles from Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy.”
Prior to entering the MCU in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Patrick Stewart played Professor X in the 2000 film X-Men. It appears that he wrapped up his role in 2017’s Logan. In X-Men: First Class and its follow-ups, James McAvoy portrayed the X-Men founder at a younger age.
Sneider continued by revealing which actor Marvel Studios is interested in playing Magneto, the classic X-Men antagonist and previous friend of Professor X, and why race-swapping Charles Xavier might be the strategy, stating, “the rumor was that they want Denzel [Washington]:”
“And again, the rumor was that they want Denzel [Washington] for Magneto. And so, it’d be interesting if they had a Black counterpart as Charles. Colman Domingo is someone who I think is high on that list of a potential if they go with an older Charles… It’s funny Jamie just said, ‘What about David Oyelowo?’ I think Colman Domingo is higher up on the list than David Oyelowo at this point.”
This rumor is especially intriguing because it claims that Denzel Washington has already been cast in a future MCU movie. The actor revealed that Ryan Coogler from Black Panther is already “writing a part for [him]” in Black Panther 3 while promoting Gladiator II.
Colman Domingo (Selma, Zola) is accustomed to the Marvel rumor mill, race-swapped characters, and the MCU. He voiced an African-American Norman Osborn in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in 2025, and in 2024, he was apparently being considered to take Jonathan Majors’ position as Kang the Conqueror.
No release date has been set for the X-Men reboot in the MCU. But according to reports, Marvel Studios is interested in Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier, and writer Michael Lesslie is on board to create the screenplay.
