Samara Weaving Cast as Emma Frost in Marvel’s X-Men Reboot

Marvel may have kept quiet about Jake Schreier‘s X-Men reboot during its Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend. Still, the first major casting announcement has now emerged, with Deadline reporting that Samara Weaving has been cast as Emma Frost.

The casting process for the new mutants has been one of Marvel’s busiest priorities this summer, with Schreier and Marvel executives meeting and auditioning actors for several roles. Frost reportedly underwent the most extensive search of the new cast, with the final list of actors testing for the role assembled shortly after July 4. It has since been reported that Weaving‘s audition was hard to beat.

Emma Frost first appeared in the X-Men comics in the 1980s and is a powerful and influential mutant telepath, first appearing as a supervillain in the comics but later becoming one of the X-Men after a tragic event led to a change of heart. January Jones most recently played the character in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

The latest development has been long anticipated by fans who have been waiting for a new X-Men film since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and its library in 2019. The new project gained momentum when Schreier was attached to direct after the success of Thunderbolts*, and Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-creator Joanna Calo were hired to pen the script.

Weaving has already had a big year, leading Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the sequel to the hit 2019 horror-comedy Ready or Not. Reprising her role as Grace MacCaullay, the sequel grossed three times its production budget within a single day of its digital release and ranked highly on Disney+ globally. She followed that with Over Your Dead Body, which won the Audience Award at SXSW, and the romantic crime thriller Carolina Caroline, which was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick.

The remaining X-Men cast members have yet to be announced, though Marvel has more reveals planned for D23 this August.