Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. This week is the fourth in a four part series spanning the month of May, which envisions a full reboot of the X-Men movie franchise.

The same X-Men series has been running (with some timeline jumps) since 2000, and it’s been a mixed bag at best. Even as people are excited for X-Men: Apocalypse, a lot of fans have suggested that it might be about time to shake things up. So what would an X-Men reboot look like? That’s the challenge I’ve set for myself this month. There are a lot of actors in the current series that I love, but I’m not letting myself use any of them — at least, not in the same roles!

This movie takes its cues from the classic early '90s era of X-Men, although it will be set in the present. It features the Upstarts, a group of privileged villains who are competing to see who can kill the most mutants to win points. While they're not necessarily the most fondly remembered villains, I think the "nefarious murder game" plot has lot of cinematic potential. It's their competition that leads to Omega Red being unleashed on the X-Men. Of course, the climax of the movie comes when Magneto, who everyone thought was dead, returns to quickly dispatch the Upstarts, and then turns his attentions back to the X-Men.

Here are the cast members returning from our previous films, X-Men, Dark Phoenix, and Inferno:

  • Adam Scott as Cyclops
  • Bryce Dallas Howard as Jean Grey
  • Michael C. Hall as the Beast
  • Oscar Isaac as Archangel
  • Maulik Pancholy as Iceman
  • Lupita Nyong’o as Storm
  • Christian Kane as Wolverine
  • Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Colossus
  • Lucy Hale as Rogue
  • Katie Leung as Psylocke
  • Christoph Waltz as Magneto
  • Dave Bautista as Sebastian Shaw (just for long enough to get murdered by his son)
  • Tiffany Espensen as Jubilee

    Marvel/Disney
    Marvel/Disney
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    Espensen is a promising and energetic young actress, and with a haircut and some big sunglasses, she'll make a perfect Jubilee.

  • Ian Somerhalder as Gambit

    Marvel/CW
    Marvel/CW
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    Somerhalder is actually from Louisiana, so maybe he can make Gambit's accent sound like the speech of an actual human. He's also very, very good-looking, which is the other key factor.

  • Adam Beach as Forge

    Marvel/NBC
    Marvel/NBC
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    I don't know if they've specifically updated this in the comics (Marvel time is so weird), but clearly Forge needs to be a veteran who served in Afghanistan or Iraq, rather than Vietnam.

  • Idris Elba as Bishop

    Marvel/Fox
    Marvel/Fox
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    I do my best not to overuse the actors that the internet wants to cast in every role, but let me have this one.

  • Jesús Castro as Fabian Cortez

    Marvel/Telecinco
    Marvel/Telecinco
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    Cortez wore a bluetooth before bluetooths existed, which makes him, which makes him something of a futurist among d-bags.

  • Milo Ventimiglia as Trevor Fitzroy

    Marvel/ABC
    Marvel/ABC
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    Honestly, I was never convinced that Jess from Gilmore Girls wasn't secretly an energy vampire from the future.

  • Alexander Skarsgård as Andreas Strucker

    Marvel/HBO
    Marvel/HBO
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    Not actually German, but handsome enough that nobody will care.

  • Diane Kruger as Andrea Strucker

    Marvel/Universal
    Marvel/Universal
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    Actually German, and believably Skarsgård's twin sister, I think.

  • David Sakurai as Shinobi Shaw

    Marvel/Spearhead Pictures
    Marvel/Spearhead Pictures
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    Patricide is never as good a career move as it seems, but Shaw should at least look good doing it.

  • Rusev as Omega Red

    Marvel/WWE
    Marvel/WWE
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    He's a leftover Soviet super-weapon. I'm talking about Rusev. That's why he should play Omega Red.

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