The last 12 months for Alexandra Shipp have certainly been busy for the young actress. After starring as Aaliyah in Lifetime’s contentious biopic, and then starring in VH1’s “Drumline” sequel, both last year, Shipp was cast as Storm in the next “X-Men” movie – “X-Men: Apocalypse” – earlier this year.
You might recall when, last September, “X-Men” writer Simon Kinberg answered fan questions about the recent “Days of Future Past,” as well as the next installment in the franchise, “Apocalypse,” revealing that “first-wave” characters like Storm (as played by Halle Berry thus far) would have to be recast in the next film.
“It’d be very hard to do, because Halle, Famke, and Jimmy and others have done such wonderful jobs of bringing those characters to life,” said Kinberg. “But I also would have said before ‘First Class’ that there would be no actors who can stand alongside Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart.”
“Apocalypse” will focus mostly on the generation of X-Men introduced in “X-Men: First Class” – essentially, younger versions of Mystique (as played by Jennifer Lawrence), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). Hence Shipp playing a younger version of Storm, to match.
I should also note that, perhaps encouraged by the success of its current hit TV series “Gotham,” which is set in the world we’ve all come to be familiar with via the Batman movies (although many years before the Dark Knight became the Dark Knight), as well as Disney’s plans to exploit its own Marvel superheroes on the big and small screens, Fox is also considering an X-Men live-action TV series.
No deals had been signed as of the time of the announcement, which was in January, but word on the street was that there was definite interest, with THR adding that “Star Trek 3” writers, Patrick McKay and JD Payne, had been hired to pen the script, with the producers of a previous Fox series, “24,” lined up to produce.
Given how early it was in discussions, there weren’t any details available on potential story (or stories) – like whether producers will look to existing X-Men comics for inspiration, what specific X-Men characters will be included, etc. My guess is that, the most popular of the X-Men (those who’ve been appearing in the X-Men movies) likely won’t be starring in the TV series. It could be that Fox may use this as a testing ground for future X-Men character movies. There’s an entire library of X-Men characters for Fox to exploit on screen – at least 5 dozen of them, based on the Marvel Wiki.
By the way, the next installment in the film series, “X Men: Apocalypse,” will be out May 27, 2016.
In the meantime, meet your next Storm – Alexandra Shipp. Entertainment Weekly has a few more pics of other members of the film’s cast that you can look at.
Source: Shadow & Act
