With it previously reported that Rosario Dawson was in advanced talks for a role in 20th Century Fox’s upcoming X-Men spin-off, New Mutants, now comes word that the actress has stepped away from the project.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Dawson is no longer in talks to play the role of Dr. Cecilia Reyes. Instead, Predators and I Am Legend’s Alice Braga is in negotiations for the gig. The role in question is of a mentor figure described as “a medical doctor who has the ability to generate a protective bio-field around herself but also has more going on than she lets on.”

Already on board for the young team-up effort are The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton as Cannonball, 13 Reasons Why’s Henry Zaga as Sunspot, and The Originals’ Blu Hunt as Dani Moonstar. In addition to this, shape-shifting alien Warlock will also feature but will be a purely CGI character.

To be directed by The Fault in Our Stars’ Josh Boone, shooting on New Mutants is set to start later this month ahead of an April 13th, 2018 release.

As 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix gets set to start shooting later this year, the next entry in the main X-Men franchise has brought in another new cast member.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, The Next Step’s Lamar Johnson has joined the cast in a mystery role. In addition to this, Evan Peters has also now been confirmed to return as fan favourite Quicksilver.

The pair join a cast that will currently feature the returns of Michael Fassbender as Magneto, James McAvoy as Professor X, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler. In terms of new faces, Jessica Chastain has been brought in to play the villain of the picture, Lilandra.

Plot-wise, the film will pull inspiration from the famed Dark Phoenix Saga comic book arc, with Turner’s young Jean being taken over by the all-powerful Phoenix Force. With Lilandra and her Shi-ar Empire on a mission to wipe the Phoenix from existence, she’ll be seen butting heads with our familiar X-faces.

With longtime franchise writer/producer Simon Kinberg to direct this time out, X-Men: Dark Phoenix is currently set for a November 2nd, 2018 release.

With Spidey setting to follow this month’s solo adventure with an appearance in the next two Avengers efforts, now comes a little update on the timeframe of the second solo outing for Tom Holland’s Wall-crawler.

Speaking to Fandom, producer Amy Pascal revealed, “What I think we should focus on is this Spider-Man who starred in Civil War and then has this movie, and then will be in the Avengers movie. And we are starting now the next one, which will start a few minutes after Avengers 4 wraps as a story.”

In addition, Spider-Man: Homecoming director Jon Watts told The Hollywood Reporter, “I think that would be a lot of fun. There’s still a lot of unexplored territory. To deal with the fallout of Infinity War and be a junior in high school, I think sounds like a pretty good movie to me.”

At present, the second Spider-Man film is booked in for a July 5th, 2019 release, which is just two months after the still-to-be-titled Avengers: Infinity War follow-up’s May 3rd, 2019 release date. Before both of those, of course, is Infinity War itself, which is set for a May 2018 release.

The current plan is for production to start in August for the Homecoming sequel. In addition to that, Holland’s Spidey is already confirmed for a third solo picture, capping off a trilogy that begins when Spider-Man: Homecoming swings to cinemas on July 7th.

With 20th Century Fox already having plenty of X-Men-driven movies on the horizon, the studio has moved to announce release dates for six further X-outings.

Whilst official details are unknown on just what these movies will be right now, the films have been booked in for June 7th 2019, November 22nd 2019, March 13th 2020, June 26th 2020, October 2nd 2020, and March 5th 2021.

Of course, already announced for 2018 are New Mutants for April 13th, Deadpool 2 for June 1st, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix for November 2nd.

Where these newly announced films’ release dates are concerned, we already know that we’ll be getting a Deadpool 3 and finally X-Force. Elsewhere, chances are that there will be further outings for the main X-Men movies, and Fox may well even choose to go back for another Fantastic Four picture (even if we’d all rather them just let Marvel Studios take control of the FF).

As ever, expect more on all of this as it develops.

How about this for a nice little nod for eagle-eyed fans? Following a popular fan theory, it’s actually been confirmed that Peter Parker technically debuted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe way before his appearance in last year’s Captain America: Civil War.

The theory in question claimed that Spidey actually appeared in Iron Man 2, with it being Peter who is the young Iron Man fan who looks to fight one of the Hammer drones during that movie. And now, Tom Holland has moved to confirm that this theory is indeed true.

Speaking to The Huffington Post, Holland revealed, “It is Peter Parker. I can confirm that, that is Peter Parker. I can confirm that as of today. I literally had a conversation with Kevin Feige only 20 minutes ago. Maybe I’ve just done a big old spoiler, but it’s out there now. It’s cool. I like the idea that Peter Parker has been in the universe since the beginning.”

Seeing a young Peter as a fan of the Armored Avenger certainly makes sense, particularly with how his Civil War debut saw Holland’s Wall-crawler being mentored by Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. Similarly, when Spider-Man: Homecoming swings to the big screen on July 7th, Iron Man will be present to help out Spidey.

With Jake Busey now long-confirmed to feature in Shane Black’s currently-filming The Predator, an interesting piece of information has come out on who he’ll be playing in the movie.

Gary Busey, Jake’s father, famously played Peter Keyes in Predator 2, of course, and now it’s been revealed that Jake’s role in The Predator will actually be the son of his pops’ character.

Speaking to The Red Booth, Jake explained, “Shane called me and he said ‘Hey, you wanna do this movie? We don’t have money for you but it’ll be a fun thing to come play and be your father’s son.’ And so, as much as I have followed in my Dad’s footsteps career-wise, this is like really following in his footsteps by playing a character who is the son of the character he played. I don’t think there would be any other forum where I would do that. I think this is the one thing.”

The actor then went on to add, “If you liked the very first movie a lot, you’ll really like this one. This one has a lot of essence of the first movie.”

It was previously believed that The Predator would indeed exist in the same cinematic world as the first two movies, and this is yet another indication of that. On board to join Jake Busey are Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, Olivia Munn, Keegan-Michael Key, Edwards James Olmos, Trevante Rhodes, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Yvonne Strahovski, and Augusto Aguilera.

At present, The Predator is set for an August 3rd, 2018 release.

Beloved genre figure Ted Raimi is finally to make his feature directorial debut.

Having appeared in the likes of Evil Dead II, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Shocker, Dark Man, Xena and brother Sam’s Spider-Man trilogy, Ted will be popping his feature film directing cherry with psychological thriller The Seventh Floor.

Speaking to Broke Horror Fan, Raimi said, “I’m directing my first feature this year, as a matter of fact. It’s called The Seventh Floor. Veva Entertainment is producing it, and we’re pre-pro now. We don’t start shooting until September, at the moment. It’s a thriller. I can’t tell you what it’s about, but it’s a psychological horror. I’m very expect about that. It’s not traditional horror; there’s no monsters or zombies or anything like that. It’s more in your head.”

On what his influences on this film are, Raimi added, “For this one, Roman Polanski and Dario Argento. Both of those guys are incredibly influential; Roman Polanski for his ability to build tension where there seemingly is none, and Dario Argento for his filmmaking style and the speed at which the action happens. It’s unbelievable. I’ve studied them to get a sense of it. I’m also heavily inspired by David Cronenberg. He for the same reason that I like Polanski. He’s able to create such amazing moments where there is no action, but you sense a palpable tension.”

As ever, expect more on The Seventh Floor as it develops.