A new casting call for New Mutants asking for extremely tall men chasing children may point to the film's villain being cast soon. Josh Boone is rapidly approaching the start of production on his first film in the X-Men franchise and will launch a new one in his first outing. While the project has been in development for years, it taken some major steps forward, including being assigned a release date. It was just confirmed that Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams have joined the cast as Magik and Wolfsbane, but the rest of the lineup has yet to be cast.
During the pre-production process, it was previously revealed via an animatic that Demon Bear will be one of the film's primary antagonists. In this video, a few of thew New Mutants are seen fleeing a hospital hallway as they are being chased by the foe. While Fox has yet to officially divulge any information on Demon Bear's presence or any other antagonists, a new casting call shows some threat is after the mutants.
Project Casting has uncovered a new casting call for an upcoming X-Men film that has set production in Boston. With New Mutants already confirmed to be filming there, the call appears to be for a role in the next X-Men film and is looking for men between 6'9" and 7'4" that are also skinny and athletic. The role is not just for stand-in purposes and will see the actor chase down kids through hallways while wearing some form of prosthetics and makeup. Thanks to the description of the character's activities, some form of antagonist should be in play.
This could be for the role of Demon Bear and the actor that lands this part will serve as a reference point during the actual production, only to later be replaced in post. Then again, with it sounding like the role is not a motion capture performance, this could be the basis for a character that will receive CGI enhancements later on. In either instance, having an open casting call for a role that films for a few days will likely go to a rather unknown actor and may not be an indicator that this character will be the big bad.
Instead, some sort of supporting villain could be in the cards. Whether this comes in tandem with Demon Bear or from a different threat altogether is unknown. If this is not related to Demon Bear, it marks the first indication that another threat outside of the giant animal will be involved. This may not be surprising to anyone as a giant bear may not be enough of a big bad to fill up an entire movie, but this is good news nonetheless as the film inches closer to the start of filming.
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Source: Project Casting