When Ian McKellen comes on screen for the first time in X-Men 3, we see him 20 years younger through the magic of modern technology. Both he and Patrick Stewart we given extensive make-up jobs and had digital effects applied to them to appear much younger… rather than getting other actors to play the younger versions of themselves.
Since the first sneak peaks of that scene came out, a lot of people have wondered if they would actually get Ian McKellen back to play Magneto in the spinn-off prequel. I personally said they’d never do that… but it looks like I may have been wrong! Well… sorta. The bood folks over at Comicbookmovie give us this:
Ian McKellen will play Magneto in the X-Men spin-off movie, according to John Bruno, X-Men: The Last Stand FX supervisor by way of Superhero Hype. The movie has been touted as a prequel/origin story so it’s likely that McKellen would portray the mutant at his present age, flashbacking to the past, rather than as a young man.
This was borne out by comments made by outgoing Marvel Studios exec Avi Arad who talked with iF Magazine. The Magneto movie, he said, would be “starting with a younger version. It’s the story of Magneto’s life, and it will span some years.”
So it’s a little unclear what is being said here. To me it looks like McKellen will indeed be in the Magneto spinn-off… but that he won’t play the younger version of himself. This makes sense to me.
Yes, the effects on Xavier and Magneto in the begining of X-Men 3 looked amazing… but to do that sort of effect through an whole film would be mind blowingly hard, and VERY VERY expensive. So I still don’t think that’s what will happen. But it sure would be good to see him in there as himself at his current age!
