The X-Men have a new leader.Deadline is reporting that Marvel Studios has cast Kit Connor as Cyclops/Scott Summers for Jake Schreier's 2028 Marvel Cinematic Universe film X-Men, based on the Marvel Comics mutant superteam.
Connor joins Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, who recently made her debut in the MCU film Spider-Man: Brand New Day, along with Samara Weaving as Emma Frost.
According to the article, "Similar to the Weaving situation, where director Jake Schreier and Marvel president Kevin Feige met with a number of candidates, sources say the studio ultimately landed on Connor last week."
Connor, 22, is an English actor probably best known as Nick Nelson on the Netflix series Heartstopper and film Heartstopper Forever. He's also appeared in the films Get Santa, Mr. Holmes, Ready Player One, Slaughterhouse Rulez, The Wild Robot, and Warfare. In addition, he voiced Pantalaimon on the HBO series His Dark Materials.
Created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Cyclops first appeared in X-Men (vol.1) #1 as Scott "Slim" Summers, who was orphaned as a boy when a Shi'ar spacecraft attacked his family's plane over Alaska. His parents forced Scott and his brother Alex Summers into the only parachute before the plane went down. Scott struck his head upon landing and fell into a coma, leaving him with limited control over his emerging mutant powers. After a period in state care and a brief, unsuccessful attempt to manage his mutant abilities alone, he was taken in by Charles Xavier, who trained him and made him field leader of the X-Men.Leading the original group of X-Men, Cyclops battled Magneto and the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants while developing a complicated relationship with his teammate Marvel Girl/Jean Grey. When the original team was captured by the living island Krakoa, he escaped and assembled a new international roster to rescue them, staying on after most of the original members left. He later discovered that his long-missing father was Corsair, leader of an alien crew called the Starjammers, though Jean learned this first and kept it from him for years.
Jean soon died piloting a spacecraft through a solar flare and, unknowingly, was replaced by a cosmic entity calling itself Phoenix. Phoenix eventually became Dark Phoenix, committing mass genocide of an entire planet, and sacrificed herself. Later on, Cyclops met Madelyne Pryor, a woman nearly identical to Jean, married her, and retired from the team after their son Nathan Summers was born. However, when Jean was discovered alive, he abandoned Madelyne and Nathan to rejoin the original X-Men under the name X-Factor. Madelyne, manipulated and eventually revealed to be a clone of Jean Grey created by Mister Sinister, became the Goblin Queen and sought revenge before killing herself. Nathan was later infected with a techno-organic virus, and Cyclops sent him into the future to save his life.
Scott and Jean married and were briefly pulled into that same future, raising the infant Nathan for twelve years before returning to the present, where Nathan has grown into the mercenary Cable. The X-Men's enemy, Apocalypse, seized control over Cyclops's body during a later conflict. Jean and Cable eventually separated Cyclops from Apocalypse, but the possession left Scott's relationship with Jean distant and strained. He turned to Emma Frost, and what began as psychic therapy sessions turned into a full psychic affair. Jean discovered the affair, forcing a confrontation, but was killed shortly after in battle with Xorn. Cyclops started a real relationship with Emma and reopened the Xavier Institute with her as co-headmasters.
More recently, Cyclops became one of the leaders of the sovereign mutant nation of Krakoa, until its eventual fall at the hands of Orchis. Cyclops was ambushed and captured by Orchis forces, then put on trial as a representative of mutants due to his status as a leader of the X-Men, facing the death penalty. After Orchis was deal with, Cyclops started a new X-Men team based out of a decommissioned Sentinel factory in Merle, Alaska.
Connor will be the fourth actor to portray Cyclops in live-action, after James Marsden in the films X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Avengers: Doomsday; Tim Pocock in X-Men Origins: Wolverine; and Tye Sheridan in the films X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool 2, and Dark Phoenix.
Jake Schreier's X-Men film is expected to arrive in theaters sometime in 2028.
