EXCLUSIVE: While there was no mention of X-Men in Comic-Con’s Hall H this past weekend, Marvel Studios seems to be getting closer to forming its team of Mutants. Sources tell Deadline that Samara Weaving is the choice to play Emma Frost in the upcoming X-Men movie. After meeting with a number of candidates, director Jake Schreier and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige landed on Weaving earlier this week to tackle the role.
Marvel had no comment on the casting.
While James Bond has had everyone’s attention this summer, the most active casting process has been who will play the new team of Mutants. While Schreier and Marvel execs have been meeting and auditioning actors for a number of roles, with the Frost character appearing to elicit the most thorough search among the new cast.
The final list of actors tested for the role right after July 4th. At the end of the day, Weaving’s audition was too hard to beat.
Frost is a telepathic Mutant who first showed up in X-Men comics in the 1980s and has evolved over the years, going from supervillain to a key team member of the X-Men. On the film side, she was most recently played by January Jones in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
This latest development is sure to excite fans of the franchise who have been begging for a new X-Men movie since Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox and its library in 2019. The X-Men universe was by far the most popular and profitable Marvel IP that Fox controled, counting seven films and a successful Wolverine spinoff franchise that produced three more.
The new project gained momentum last spring when Schreier was tapped to direct, followed by Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-creator Joanna Calo hired to pen the script.
Weaving is already having herself a big 2026. In March, she led Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the sequel to the 2019 hit horror-comedy Ready or Not, which saw her step back into the role of fierce protagonist Grace MacCaullay. The sequel achieved an audience approval rating of 90%, a rare feat for a horror/thriller genre film, and grossed three times its production budget within a single day of its May 5 digital release, climbing to the No. 1 spot on Hulu and ranking high globally on Disney+.
She followed with IFC’s Over Your Dead Body, winner of a SXSW Audience Award, which she co-led opposite Jason Segel.
In June, Sam starred in the romantic crime thriller Carolina Caroline, which was named a NYT Critics’ Pick and sits at 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes .
Weaving is repped by CAA and 111 Media.
