James Marsden recently expressed his interest in reprising his X-Men role of Cyclops in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, revealing that he would happily return if the story was right. Marsden played the character of Cyclops in four X-Men movies, starring more prominently in the first and second instalments. Marvel titles that include Marsden’s portrayal of Cyclops, in order, are X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
There was also an 8-year- gap between the releases of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past, with ‘Days of Future Past’ now being around 8 years old as it was released in 2016. Marsden starred alongside fellow X-Men stars Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, who have already both signed on to reprise their roles for the MCU, with Stewart appearing as a variant of Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This has increased the fan speculation to its highest peak on who could be the next legacy Marvel actor to join the franchise, especially when considering the fact that the multiverse is now a factor in the wider scope of things.
James Marsden Would Join The MCU
While discussing the fact that Marvel Studios are currently working on introducing the X-Men into the MCU during a recent carpet interview with TheWrap, Marsden was asked “if they [Marvel Studios] asked you to reprise your role of Cyclops, in any shape or form, would you be about it?”, to which Marsden responded: “Sure, yeah, I mean I’m all about, you know, material and what the story is, and what the character would be doing but it’s a character I played and that’s very close to my heart”.
Marsden also went on to express his love and interest in both his X-Men character and the cast he worked with on the X-Men projects he was involved with, saying “You know, that family, I miss it dearly, we created a very special thing in the first couple of X-Men movies, and yeah, I’d love to explore that”.
However, Marsden also said that he would want to at least see what “it would look like first” before saying yes to anything, and with projects such as Deadpool 3 and Avengers: Secret Wars currently being developed, it is highly possible that Marsden could return as a multiversal version of Cyclops. The current multiverse state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has opened the door for any legacy Marvel actor to reprise their roles, which Spider-Man: No Way Home proved by combining Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man franchises together.
Source: Twitter