A new rumor from Coming Soon (via Slash Film) states that Death Note‘s Nat Wolff is being eyed for the role of Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball in Josh Boone’s New Mutants.
Nat previously worked with Boone in The Fault In Our Stars and had been rumored to be in the mix to play the new Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming. His recent project is Netflix’s Western feature film version of Death Note.
Cannonball is a mutant who uses the ability to fly at jet speeds while encased in an impenetrable force field. The eldest of a large Kentucky coal mining family, Cannonball is one of few X-Men from a southern, rural background and has maintained the values of civility, hard work, and a strong commitment to his beliefs throughout his career as a superhero.
He’s one of the few X-Men characters that I could careless about, so I hope Nat is able to give him a reason for me to root for or end up liking. However, with the right writing I could see Cannonball becoming a little more barable.
Wolff isn’t the only new actor rumored for the movie months back HitFix reported that Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) was wanted for Wolfsbane and Anya Taylor-Joy (Morgan, The Witch, Split) was wanted for the role of Magik. Other characters Josh Boone confirmed are in the film include Mirage and alien team member Warlock.
New Mutants’ tone of the film is said to be similar to Stephen King supernatural/horror, which would explain why Fox was extremely interested in Williams and Taylor-Joy being involved in dark material.
The site also has animated storyboard video that includes the film’s villain Demon Bear, which was revealed over a year ago by Boone.
An unknown villain created the Demon Bear by demonically mutating William and Peg Lonestar. The Demon Bear haunted the dreams of their daughter Danielle Moonstar aka Mirage, claiming he had killed her parents and would eventually come and kill her.
Increasingly troubled by her dreams of the Demon Bear, Moonstar (then called Mirage) ran various Danger Room scenarios against bears, and then confronted the demon alone; he mauled her and severely damaged her spine. The New Mutants rushed her to the Mid-County Medical Center. The Demon Bear infiltrated the hospital, transported the team to the Badlands, and turned nurse Sharon Friedlander and officer Tom Corsi into demonic Native American warriors under his control. They later reverted to normal humans, but still kept the appearance of Native Americans. Here the New Mutants fought and defeated the Demon Bear, disrupting him with Magik’s Soulsword. Danielle’s parents leapt from his body, returning them to normal.
Kitty Pryde’s talking purple dragon sidekick Lockheed will also seemingly in the film too being paired with Magik as spotted in the animated storyboards.
Lockheed looks like a small European dragon about the size of a cat. He has purple skin, sharp claws and teeth, two small, curved horns protruding from the back of his head and wings that enable him to fly. He can breathe fire with extreme intensity and is a surprisingly formidable combatant for his size, having once destroyed a nest of Sidri hatchlings and at another time bested a fully armored medieval knight-in-training. Quite tellingly, the Brood that he confronted upon his first appearance were terrified and immediately fled upon seeing him. His brain is immune to telepathic probing by telepaths such as Professor X. He is also empathic and able to understand human speech. He is able to speak English as well, but rarely does so.
Production is set to begin this Spring, but Fox hasn’t made anything official or announced a release date.
SOURCE: COMINGSOON