Last week’s D23 Expo delivered a slew of anticipated and surprise announcements, and one of the highlights of the event was the introduction of the MCU’s X-Men. Sadie Sink, who was confirmed to play Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, took the stage and called in her co-stars. All of them were standouts, but Magneto and Professor X were arguably two of the most-awaited casting confirmations. Marvel has at least revealed half of that, with Christopher Abbott tapped to play Charles Xavier.
X-Men is expected to be Abbott’s second superhero film after Kraven the Hunter, where he played the assassin the Foreigner. The actor actually has an impressive 18-year career in TV, theater, and film, with starring roles in Catch-22, Sanctuary, Poor Things, and last year’s Wolf Man. He’s also headlining two book adaptations this year — a theatrical production of Death of a Salesman, and Netflix’s historical epic, East of Eden. The latter of these two titles has just released new images, which you can see below.
We can expect Abbott to draw from his theater roots in East of Eden, a modernized adaptation of John Steinbeck’s seminal novel, and the new photos confirm it’s going to be a period piece with modern themes. Set in California’s Salinas Valley, East of Eden is a multigenerational saga about the Trask family, which parallels the story of Cain and Abel, but the Netflix series will center around Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh, Oppenheimer, Thunderbolts*), whose life is intertwined with generations of Trask men, most notably Adam (Abbott) and his brother Charles (Mike Faist, Challengers).
The photos are already hinting at a tense love triangle that will be unraveled in the story, causing a rift between the Trask brothers, with Cathy pulling the strings. Netflix describes Cathy as a “scheming antihero,” but in Steinbeck’s novel, she was an outright villain with no tragic backstory and no remorse. “I wanted to make sure that she was also a person and not just an archetype,” writer and executive producer Zoe Kazan told Tudum. She added:
“The movie isn’t a super faithful adaptation of the small part of the book that it is adapting. What I felt was the whole epic story is an opportunity to explore, to fall in love with all these characters.”
East of Eden also stars Tracy Letts (A House of Dynamite), Martha Plimpton (A Town Called Malice), Ciarán Hinds (Game of Thrones), Joseph Zada (We Were Liars), Joe Anders (1917), and Hoon Lee (Your Friends & Neighbors).
Steinbeck’s novel was first adapted in the eponymous 1955 film starring James Dean and directed by Elia Kazan, Zoe Kazan’s paternal grandfather. There was also a 1981 TV miniseries starring Timothy Bottoms and Jane Seymour. Netflix’s seven-part East of Eden limited series premieres on Oct. 1.
East of Eden will showcase Christopher Abbott’s dramatic chops in a role that’s well within his wheelhouse — a brooding, psychologically layered character that should offer a glimpse into his approach to playing Professor Charles Xavier in the MCU’s X-Men reboot.
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Netflix
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Garth Davis
