X-Men Star James Marsden Open to Another Superhero Role Under Marvel

Former X-Men star James Marsden is “totally open” to rejoining the franchise under Marvel Studios, who is expected to reboot the mutants when introducing the characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marsden portrayed Scott Summers, a.k.a. concussive blast-firing team leader Cyclops, in 2000’s X-Men and 2003’s X2: X-Men United before the character met his end at the hands of corrupted lover Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. Cyclops was prematurely killed at the behest of then-owners 20th Century Fox because Marsden had limited availability due to following X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer to the DC Comics universe in Superman Returns, where Marsden played Richard White.

Marsden next stars as Green Hills sheriff Tom Wachowski in Sonic the Hedgehog, but would the 46-year-old actor seize an opportunity to return to the X-Men universe as a different character?

“Sure. It might be weird to be one thing to sort of rejoin Marvel or rejoin DC or something like that, but to actually rejoin X-Men as a different character might feel a little strange. But I would be open to it,” Marsden told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview. “I mean, that was a world I have great respect for and [I’m] very grateful to be a part of that family for a long period of time. It’s one of those special moments in my career and I would totally be open to that.”

Marsden last returned as Cyclops in a cameo appearance in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, where a time-traveling Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) prevented a disastrous future while course correcting that universe’s timeline. Franchise writer-producer Simon Kinberg, who stepped behind the camera for the first time on last summer’s Dark Phoenix, said that film was viewed as the “culmination” of the 20-year Fox-verse X-Men franchise.

“From the beginning of conceiving what we were going to do with this film and writing it, which was three plus years ago, so long before there was a Disney merger, I felt like this was the natural culmination for this cycle of X-Men movies,” Kinberg previously told ComicBook.com. “Because it is seeing this family that you’ve come to love and know for how ever many films, and if you count the originals almost 20 years now, you see that family tested in a whole new way. You see that family start to fall apart in a real way for the first time, ultimately come back together.”

Tye Sheridan starred as a younger version of Marsden’s Cyclops alongside Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey. This iteration of the characters is expected to be abandoned under Disney-owned Marvel Studios, who inherited the X-Men characters following Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox.

Sonic the Hedgehog opens Feb. 14.