Feb 22, 2008 - Ryan Reynolds (Definitely, Maybe), Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings), and will.i.am have all signed on to the upcoming 20th Century Fox movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine directed by Gavin Hood. Production is underway on the film with the studio planning a May 2009 release.
Reynolds will play Deadpool, will.i.am is John Wraith, Monaghan is Barnell, and Kitsch takes on the role of Gambit. The new members of the cast join returning star Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, as well as recent additions to the cast: Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed/Sabretooth, Danny Huston as Col William Stryker, and Lynn Collins in the role of Kayla Silver Fox.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine explores the origins of the clawed mutant. Director Hood, whose past films include Tsotsi and Rendition, explained the appeal of directing a big-budget comic book-inspired studio film after working on much smaller fare while at the press conference for Rendition. "...What I do love about the Wolverine character is that there is within that character a great deal of disconnection from who he really is and what it means to be human. So what we're really getting a chance to do is do opera. We're taking human emotion and in the way that you would have Zeus throwing thunder bolts, it's three claws," said Hood.
Filming will take place in New Zealand, Australia, and New Orleans according to Variety.
