Kit Connor, the 21-year-old British actor who became a global phenomenon through Netflix's Heartstopper and earned critical praise for his role in A24's Warfare earlier this year, has been cast as Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, in Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot directed by Jake Schreier.
Deadline broke the news Thursday. Marvel and Connor's representatives had no comment.
Connor is the third actor to play Cyclops in a live-action X-Men film, following James Marsden, who is reprising the original Fox-era version of the character in Avengers: Doomsday in December, and Tye Sheridan, who played him in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix.
The MCU's version will be entirely separate from Marsden's.
The casting process mirrored the search for Emma Frost, which landed on Samara Weaving last week, also to nobody's surprise since she too appeared on zero prediction lists.
A small group of actors screen tested after the July 4th holiday. Kevin Feige and Schreier deliberated for weeks. Connor won out.
Sadie Sink as Jean Grey and Connor as Cyclops means both leads will be young British and American rising stars. The X-Men reboot is beginning to take shape.
No release date has been announced. D23 is in two weeks. Expect more.