Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy Confirmed for X-Men Spin-Off ‘New Mutants’

Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy have been confirmed for X-Men spin-off movie New Mutants.

The 20-year-old actress has been hand-picked by Fox to be one of the franchise’s fresh batch of superheroes and while it was only rumored before, the film has now been given the go ahead with a release date edging towards April 2018.

Maisie – most famous for her role as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones – is to portray Wolfsbane, also known as Rahne Sinclair who has the ability to transform into a wolf. Anya Taylor-Joy and Alexandra Shipp are also set to star in the project as Illya Rasputin, aka Magik and a mystery mutant respectively.

James McAvoy will reprise his role as Professor X and will have a significant part to play in the plot.

The director is The Fault In Our Stars filmmaker Josh Boone.

Simon Kinberg, who plays a key role as a producer on the ‘X-Men’ films, said the release will have its own “original voice” and a young vibe.

He previously said: “Josh Boone and his writing partner are working on the script. They’re doing a really nice job of it, and it’s a really cool one, because in many ways, like ‘Deadpool’ was so different from the mainline ‘X-Men’ movies, New Mutants … It’s maybe not as different as ‘Deadpool’, but it has its own unique, original voice to it. That’s the fun for me, working in the ‘X-Men’ universe, creating these sort of standalone movies that have a different vibe to them. And New Mutants has more of a YA (Young Adult) vibe to it.”

The film is expected to begin shooting in in July.