Our hopes and dreams are dashed, our early casting reports are off and the will he/won’t he game is officially over. Aaron Johnson won’t be playing Cyclops in Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men: First Class” (or any role for that matter) just like EW reported a few weeks ago.
Movieweb talked to the film’s producer Tarquin Pack who was promoting Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass” DVD and he said Johnson won’t be involved in the picture.
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers about Aaron, unfortunately. Aaron’s kind of busy, yeah.”
Is it us or does this unfortunately sound like Johnson was in possible early discussions for the role, but it didn’t pan out? We do know that he was considered at one point, and he had also met with “X-Men: First Class” producer Bryan Singer over the now-delayed “Jack The Giant Killer,” which Singer was also using as an attempt to scout actors for Vaughn’s movie.
Clearly there was some kind of conversation going on (and possibly meetings), but unfortunately it didn’t come to pass. A bit of a shame. We like Johnson a lot and he’s an excellent up-and-coming actor who was also up for the “Spider-Man” role that Andrew Garfield eventually secured. What’s keeping Johnson so busy? Well, on July 7 of this year the 20-year-old actor became a first-time father (his fiancee is film director Sam Taylor-Wood, who is twenty-three years his senior), so that probably has a lot to do with it. No one wants to bail on their firstborn child a month later and then run off to an extensive shoot that could last for months.
