New year, same problems.
As part of their preview of their 2016 movie preview (preview-ception!) released this photo released of the casts from Fox”s ‘X-Men” universe taken by Sarah Dunn at SDCC last year and augmented by illustrator John Royle. Actors from “X-Men Apocalypse,” “Deadpool,” “Gambit,” and the untitled Wolverine sequel were all on display.
Well, not everyone. Some VERY key players were missing. And the Internet noticed…immediately.
Do you see it? Do you see who”s missing? The young mutants, including Storm (Alexandria Shipp), Jubilee (Lana Condor), are nowhere to be seen. Considering the microscope Hollywood has been under over diversity – or lack thereof – in recent years, it seems a gross misstep to remove two WoC (Women of Color) from the group shot.
But wait, it gets weirder. With Twitter questioning just how this happened, eagle-eyed user TASK1ne noticed something very familiar about this photo. Almost as if they”d seen it before. They had. Back in July of 2015. On EW.
Only at the time the photo – also taken by Sarah Dunn – had the “Fantastic Four” cast in place. With that movie bombing so hard it might never crawl out of the crater, they were replaced in the Empire “exclusive.” Specifically from left to right: T.J. Miller (Weasel) replaced Jamie Bell (The Thing), Ed Skrein (Ajax) replaced Miles Teller (Mr. Fantastic), Gina Carano (Angel Dust) replaced Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm), and Brianna Hildebrand (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) replaced Kata Mara (The Invisible Woman).
Fox brought the big guns to San Diego Comic-Con 2015, with the entire casts of all their upcoming films brought on stage, including Alexandria Shipp, Lana Condor, and the rest of the ‘new class” of mutants.
How they ended up on the cutting room floor – twice! – is a mystery for the ages.