Marvel has found their White Queen.
According to Deadline, Marvel Studios has cast Samara Weaving as Marvel Comics mutant Emma Frost for the Marvel Cinematic Universe's upcoming reboot of the X-Men film franchise, based on the Marvel Comics superteam.
The article states, "After meeting with a number of candidates, director Jake Schreier and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige landed on Weaving earlier this week to tackle the role." They also mention that the final list of actors tested for the role right after July 4th and that Weaving’s audition was "too hard to beat."
Weaving, 34, is an Australian actress and model who has appeared in such films as Bill & Ted Face the Music, Ready or Not, The Babysitter, Scream VI, Borderline, Snake Eyes, Guns Akimbo, Babylon, and Over Your Dead Body. She's also appeared in the TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead and Out of the Blue.
At school, Frost was bullied by her peers but found support in her teacher, Ian Kendall. When her mutant telepathic powers manifested, Frost was able to read the minds of others and glean information. Frost became a tutor to the other students. Kendall recommended that she become a teacher, something Frost's father refused. On her way home from school one day, Frost's car stopped functioning, and Ian gave her a ride home. After reading his thoughts and learning that he thought she was beautiful and intelligent, Frost kissed him. Her sister Adrienne recorded it, and her father used the evidence to get Kendall fired. Frost retaliated by blackmailing her father. Intrigued by her actions, her father offered her the family fortune, but Frost rejected his offer and decided to make her own way in life.
After enrolling at Empire State University, she began to learn about mutants for the first time and met fellow telepath Astrid Bloom, who became her friend and mentor. Frost later learned that Astrid had been secretly manipulating events. Furious, she attacked Astrid telepathically and left her comatose. Frost was later invited to the Hellfire Club, an underground elite society. Frost discovered the plans of Edward Buckman and Steven Lang to destroy all mutants. Alongside Sebastian Shaw, Lourdes Chantel, and Harry Leland, Frost battled Lang's Sentinels. Frost killed Buckman and the Council of the Chosen, then – along with Shaw – took control of the Hellfire Club, and set themselves up as Lords Cardinal of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club.
As White Queen of the Hellfire Club, Frost held many titles, one of which was chair of the board and CEO of Frost International, which helped to fund the activities of the Lords Cardinal. Frost also became the chair of the board of trustees and the headmistress of the Massachusetts Academy, a school for mutants which served as a counterpoint to Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Frost and the club's agents later attempted to recruit Kitty Pryde for the Massachusetts Academy, and captured (and Frost personally tortured) several members of the X-Men, including Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, and Phoenix. Frost engaged Phoenix in a psychic battle in which she was overpowered and on the verge of being killed. Frost launched a last-minute attack that led the X-Men to believe she had committed suicide, though in truth, she was comatose and recovering from Phoenix's attack under the care of Shaw. In another encounter with the Hellfire Club, Frost telepathically forced Pryde's parents to transfer her from Xavier's school to Massachusetts Academy. Frost then switched minds with Storm to defeat the X-Men from within their own ranks. However, the process was soon reversed, restoring the women to their respective bodies.
During her time with the Hellfire Club, Frost continued to run the Massachusetts Academy and mentored the mutant team known as the Hellions. Frost attempted to recruit several gifted youngsters to her cause: Firestar, Doug Ramsey and Kitty Pryde, all of which resulted in altercations. Alongside the Hellions, Frost encountered the Hellions' rival team, Xavier's New Mutants, several times. When the New Mutants were later killed and resurrected by the Beyonder, they were left traumatized and withdrawn. Frost offered her assistance in telepathically restoring them to their former selves. She then coerced their headmaster Magneto into allowing them to join the Massachusetts Academy. With Shaw and Selene, Frost invited Magneto to join the Hellfire Club. Alongside the Hellfire Club, Frost battled the High Evolutionary's forces to rescue Magma, helped Magneto search for the New Mutants when they had gone missing, encountered the effects of the Inferno, and eventually formed an alliance with Selene and Magneto to oust Shaw from the inner circle.
Frost later teamed up with the X-Men to defeat the Phalanx, and in the process, rescued a select group of teenage mutants who became a superhero team known as Generation X, to whom Frost and Banshee became mentors at the reopened Massachusetts Academy. After Frost's business ventures took a bad turn, she sought help from her estranged sister Adrienne, who was a psychometrist. Adrienne offered financial assistance but secretly plotted against Frost and planted a bomb at the school, resulting in the death of Synch. Frost tracked down and killed Adrienne, but after returning to the academy, grew increasingly distant from her students in an effort to hide her crime. When the students learned what Frost did, the students became estranged from her, and Generation X disbanded.
Struggling to move past the grief of having murdered her sister, Frost moved to the mutant haven island of Genosha, where she taught at a mutant school until a genocidal Sentinel attack killed most of the island's inhabitants; Frost survived due to the sudden manifestation of her secondary mutation: the power to transform herself into a flexible, near-invulnerable, diamond-like substance. Rescued by the X-Men, Frost was accepted as a member and resumed her teaching career at the Xavier Institute. She mentored the Stepford Cuckoos, a group of telepathic quintuplets who quickly became her prized pupils. Frost and the Cuckoos proved themselves when they helped fight and defeat Cassandra Nova. As a member of the X-Men, Frost began counseling over Cyclops' marital issues with Jean Grey. She quickly developed feelings for him but Cyclops initially rejected her advances.
As Scott Summers confided more in Emma, the two engaged in a psychic affair. While quelling a riot at the school, Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos was killed, and the others rejected Frost's mentorship, blaming her for the death. They attempted to get revenge by telepathically contacting Jean about Frost's and Cyclops's psychic affair. In the aftermath of the riot, Jean caught Frost and Summers in bed together in their minds. In a rage, Jean unleashed reignited Phoenix powers and psychically humiliated Frost. Afterward, Frost was found physically shattered in her diamond form. As Bishop and Sage investigated the crime, Jean used increasingly growing Phoenix powers to reassemble Frost's body, acknowledging that Frost had genuinely fallen in love with Scott. Scott confronted Jean and demands that she read his mind; Jean finally complied, only to discover that Scott and Emma never engaged in any physical contact, though Emma had offered it. Revived, Frost was able to name her attempted murderer: Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos, who had mind-controlled fellow student Angel Salvadore into shooting Frost with a diamond bullet, under the direction of Xorn.
More recently, after the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Emma again became the White Queen, now of the Hellfire Trading Company, which was responsible for legally exporting the miracle drugs produced on Krakoa. As White Queen, Emma had a seat on the Quiet Council, the ruling body of Krakoa. In addition, she created the Marauders, a team led by Kate Pryde, that was responsible for handling the black market for the miracle drugs, among other concerns.
Weaving will be the third actress to portray Emma Frost in live-action, after Finola Hughes in the 1996 Fox TV movie Generation X, and January Jones in the 2011 20th Century Fox film X-Men: First Class.
The MCU's reboot of X-Men is expected to arrive in theaters sometime in 2028.
No comments:
Post a Comment