Continuing on his mutant roll call ahead of next year’s much-anticipated X-Men: Apocalypse, director Bryan Singer has today unveiled our first look at the revised edition of Nightcrawler, who will be brought to life by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Let Me In‘s Kodi Smit-McPhee.
With production set to get underway today, April 27, the filmmaker marked the occasion by debuting a motion poster for the upcoming sequel, which you can catch a fleeting glimpse of below. A marketing gimmick though they may be, if there was ever a cinematic character to adorn a motion poster its Nightcrawler from the X-Men universe, given his superhuman agility and ability to teleport on a whim. Quick, catch him while you can!
It’s worth nothing that this is simply a mock-up of the concept design, as it’s still early days before we can feast our eyes on Smit-McPhee in motion as the clandestine mutant. Portrayed by Alex Cummings in X2, Singer and Co. are clearly gunning for a younger take on the character in comparison to Cummings’ role back in 2003, and it’s fascinating to see the ways in which the filmmaker showcases the character’s skill on screen by utilizing bleeding-edge CGI. Remember the Quicksilver scene from Days of Future Past?
Today’s reveal comes hot on the heels of further casting details for Apocalypse, after Ben Hardy and Olivia Munn were recruited to join the ranks of the star-studded ensemble as Angel and Psylocke, respectively. They will be joined by stalwarts James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, not to mention Alexandra Shipp, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Lana Condor and Oscar Isaac as the titular, power-mongering villain.
X-Men: Apocalypse opens on May 27, 2016.