'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Star Kodi-Smit McPhee Joins The Cast Of 'X-Men: Apocalypse' As Nightcrawler

I guess we can thank director Bryan Singer for keeping us from going through the nuisance of the whole "rumored shortlist of actors" process and just straight up telling us who he's casting in his upcoming film X-Men: Apocalypse. The director himself has revealed a new addition to the ever growing cast of mutants, following the recent announcement of who would be portraying the young Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm in the film just a few weeks ago. Following that major bit of casting news, it seemed like Singer's roster was finally complete. Or was it? While we hadn't even heard that a young Nightcrawler would be featured in the film, its now been made quite apparent by Singer himself that we can expect to see him show up, with young star Kodi Smit-McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) set to take on the role.

The announcement from Singer does in fact come as a bit of a shock, especially since the cast for the film seemed to have already been completed. We've known for some time now that X-Men: Apocalypse would be following the team of mutants at some point in the 1980s, following the events in the 1970s timeline of last year's X-Men: Days of Future Past. Both Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy were givens to return as Magneto and Professor X, where as Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult would also be returning as the younger counterparts of Mystique and Beast. The film will also include the newly cast Gambit (Played by Channing Tatum), and of course the return of Days of Future Past fan favorite Quicksilver (Evan Peters) in an expanded role. 

Having said that, unlike X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past, Apocalypse will be featuring many more of the teams most well known members. Its been a long time coming that a young Cyclops, Jean, and Storm would be joining the already impressive cast of young X-Men that has been put together, so the additions of Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, and Alexandra Shipp is those respective roles were no-brainers. As for McPhee's Nightcrawler, who too is one of the most recognized characters in X-Men lore, who made a memorable appearance in X-Men: United where he was played by actor Alan Cumming. 

McPhee fits in just about the same age range as Sheridan, Turner, and Shipp, so it should be expected that Xavier recruited the mutants to join the team all around the same time. This more or less resembles the line-up of the original First Class comics, with Storm and Nightcrawler serving as stand ins for Angel and Iceman (Whose characters in the X-Men series are much to young to show up in the 1980s timeline). Having said that its still unknown how important Nightcrawler will actually be to the storyline, especially with the cast and roster of characters already being so full. We can only hope he serves a bigger role than Toad (Evan Jonigkeit) did in Days of Future Past. It also would be interesting to see if Singer choses to explore the idea of Mystique being Nightcrawler's mother like in the comics, although it seems highly unlikely with the McPhee and Lawrence's close proximity in age. 

So are you happy that will get to see the return of Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse? Do you think Kodi-Smit McPhee was the right choice for the role? Sound off below!