Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon Enroll in “X-Men: First Class”

Jennifer Lawrence has parlayed her critical success in "Winter's Bone" into a pretty sweet role in the upcoming "X-Men" prequel, while Kevin Bacon is on board as an undisclosed villain.

Lawrence proved she has the chops for most any role with her turn in "Winter's Bone," the big winner at this year's Sundance, and anyone who enjoys the gift of sight can see she's got the looks to take on a part once played by Rebecca Romijn, Mystique.

For the six of you who missed "X-Men 2," Mystique is a blue-skinned, yellow-eyed shape-shifter with a mean streak a mile wide. She's also said to be the mother of NIghtcrawler and raised Rogue as her own for a few years, and founded the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Do evil people really consider themselves evil? Did Hitler strut around boasting, "I'm the very embodiment of 20th Century evil!"?)

Lawrence makes a fine addition to a cast that already includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Aaron Johnson (maybe), Nicholas Hoult, Alice Eve and Caleb Landry Jones.

Oh, and Kevin Bacon, who also joined the cast as an as yet unidentified bad guy. When rumors of his involvement first cropped up, the nerds folks over at MTV put together a nice rundown of possible villains for him to play -- our money's on Graydon Creed.

WIth the cast that director Matthew Vaughn and producer Bryan Singer are compiling, we're starting to think this once moribund franchise might get some of its glory back.

Contact Us