Marvel Confirms Adam Driver as Mister Sinister in Live-Action X-Men

Many classic and newer X-Men villains have reached theaters since Fox launched the franchise in 2000, including Magneto, Cassandra Nova, Sebastian Shaw, and Bolivar Trask. One of the most famous mutant antagonists in Marvel history has remained absent from live-action cinema, but Marvel Studios has now cast an actor for the part.

Adam Driver joins the X-Men franchise

Adam Driver announced at D23 that he will portray Nathaniel Milbury, better known as Mister Sinister, in the 2028 X-Men film. Driver previously starred as Kylo Ren, or Ben Solo, across the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He later collaborated with director Steven Soderbergh on a project called The Hunt for Ben Solo. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger reportedly canceled the movie after former Lucasfilm head Kathleen Turner approved it, leaving the project in limbo under current leadership.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige spent years pursuing Driver before securing him for the mutant villain. The character may serve as the antagonist for just one movie, though Driver’s agreement could allow Marvel to feature him in future projects.

The path to bringing Mister Sinister to theaters

Driver is not the first actor attached to the role. Jon Hamm was slated to appear as Sinister in a post-credits scene for Josh Boone’s 2020 film The New Mutants. Sinister often uses the name Nathaniel Essex, and his Essex Corporation operates the testing facility holding the young mutants in Boone’s movie. Hamm, an avid fan of comic books and the X-Men, looked forward to the part, but the crew never shot the footage. The New Mutants struggled at the box office following production delays and reshoots during Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox.

The Essex Corporation previously surfaced in the post-credits sequence of Bryan Singer’s 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse. Men in business suits investigated the ruins of the facility where William Stryker, Jr. experimented on mutants, securing a Weapon X blood sample in an Essex Corp. briefcase. Rather than featuring Sinister, Simon Kinberg’s 2019 film Dark Phoenix revisited the villain concept from Brett Ratner’s 2006 release X-Men: The Last Stand.

In Marvel lore, Nathaniel Essex worked as a contemporary of Charles Darwin who focused on accelerating human evolution. Apocalypse granted Essex immortality to aid his pursuit of survival of the fittest. Sinister developed an obsession with Jean Grey and Scott Summers, convinced their offspring would create the ultimate mutant, and later engineered a clone of Jean named Madelyne Pryor. In the 2028 film, Driver’s Sinister will target Sadie Sink as Jean Grey and Kit Connor as Cyclops, echoing dynamics explored in the X-Men ’97 season 1 episode “Fire Made Flesh.”

Marvel Studios’ X-Men opens in theaters on May 5, 2028.

Source: Polygon