How Rumors Happen: Nightcrawler In X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST?

It’s a bad week to be a temperamental X-Men film fan. There’s a lot of news pertaining to X-Men: Days of Future Past coming out, and, depending on your take on it, there’s bound to be a lot of highs and lows. Especially when it comes to rumors that turn out not to be true.

Brendan Connelly of Bleeding Cool reports on an interview between James McAvoy and Heat Radio promoting the UK release of McAvoy’s film, Welcome to the Punch. Of course, the X-Men: First Class sequel is a topic of conversation:

“It’s huge, the cast is huge,” said McAvoy. “You got me, [Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender,] Nicholas Hoult will be back, and he’s just blossoming massively over [in America]. Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen, Halle Berry, Alan Cumming, Peter Dinklage I hear mentioned – I don’t know if that’s happening – “Huge” Jackman is coming by, he’s massive, 7’5″ and muscley.” he joked.

That pretty much all you need to have to start a rumor. And a good one it is. Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United is coming back? Awesome! However, it’s not true.

X-Men Films also reported the same rumor, only they went an extra yard and found an interview between Cumming and Sirius/XM:

“No, they haven’t [asked me to return]. Someone asked me that the other day and I said no. I know the one that’s coming up shoots this Spring, but I wouldn’t be available anyways. I dont think they have. I was gonna meet my manager for dinner later, I was gonna ask him, but no, I’m sure they would’ve told me, had they approached.”

Now, both Ian McKellen and Parick Stewart said something similar when they were asked to be in the film, but both were later confirmed to be in the cast. Is this another bit of actor slight of hand? Is Cumming trying to throw off the scent?

No.

See, Alan Cumming has his spring all booked up. He will be performing in a highly-advertised (at least where I live) one-man production of Macbeth at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway. Previews for the production start on April 7, 2013, and it’s official opening night is April 21, 2013. It is a closed ended production, meaning it is already set to close on June 30, 2013. Since Days of Future Past is supposedly starting shooting in April, it should be wrapped way before June. And since it is a one-man show, and Cumming advertised as that one-man, it’s not like he can take a few weeks off and have an understudy fill in. So he isn’t lying when he says he’s out.

They could, however, recast Nightcrawler. I mean, if he’s a character in the film, they’re going to have to. Perhaps McAvoy saw the Nightcrawler character in the script, naturally assumed Cumming would be doing it, and spoke accordingly. It’s not like McAvoy has Cumming’s schedule memorized.

Developing.