Feige: Driver Passing on Marvel Roles Is a 'Tradition'
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- Kevin Feige said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that it's "no secret" Marvel wants to work with Adam Driver, calling their Zoom-and-pass cycle a "long-lived tradition"
- Feige described Driver as "couldn't be more cordial" and said the Star Wars actor is "usually upfront about how he is feeling" when declining Marvel offers
- Jake Schreier is set to direct the X-Men reboot from a script by Lee Sung Jin (Beef creator) and Joanna Calo (The Bear showrunner)
- Driver has been rumored for multiple X-Men roles including Magneto, William Stryker, or Mister Sinister, with conflicting reports circulating for weeks
- Schreier told Empire that his biggest learning curve on Thunderbolts* was balancing the proportion of action to character-driven scenes, a lesson he plans to apply to X-Men
- The reboot will introduce a new generation of X-Men actors after Avengers: Doomsday wraps the Fox-era mutants, with those characters now under Disney following its 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox
Why it matters: For Marvel, the pattern with Driver highlights how the studio's casting challenges have intensified heading into the X-Men reboot — three different rumored roles have failed to close a deal with one of Hollywood's most sought-after actors. Schreier's candid takeaway from Thunderbolts* about action scenes consuming shooting days points to a concrete creative recalibration Marvel is making as it relaunches one of its most important franchises.
