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Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Well, it looks like things are moving along quite nicely.

And it also looks like I am the least of Marvel’s concerns when it comes to leaks regarding this film.

First of all, take a look at THE OFFICIAL X-MEN 2 SITE, where they have just announced the official start of principal photography. Not a lot of other material on that site so far. Basically just a very noisy flash logo and a date. 5.02.03. Kevin Feige of Marvel Studios recently told me that Marvel plans to take that weekend and make it theirs, year after year after year. Next year it’s X-MEN 2, then it’s SPIDER-MAN 2, and by the time 2005 rolls around, look for another Marvel hero to be ready to step in and battle for top spot.

There was an article in the Victoria Times Colonist on Monday morning that claims to have confirmed something I heard as rumor over the weekend. They say that Brian Cox (RUSHMORE, MANHUNTER) has finally been signed for the key role of Stryker, described by reporter Michael D. Reid as “a villainous ex-Army commander who holds the key to Wolverine's past.” That’s accurate, character wise, based on the recent script draft I read, but Brian Cox is not yet signed according to sources on the film. I've heard a number of names attached to the role so far, all of them interesting, and none of them have panned out yet. As far as I can verify, Cox is still just in talks, and as soon as we can either confirm his involvement or him passing on the project, we'll let you know.

Reid goes on to say that Kelly Hu is playing Stryker’s assistant, Yuriki Oyama. Now, unless I had a stroke as I was reading and I somehow invented an entire alternate version of the script, that’s not right. Nor is Kelly Hu exactly accurate when she says, as she has to MANY media sources over the past two weeks, that she is playing Lady Deathstrike. Her character, who is tied to Stryker and to Wolverine in equal measure, certainly bears some resemblance to Lady Deathstrike... but she’s not. She’s Anne Reynolds. She’s a character that really hasn’t ever existed in comics continuity. I’ve seen many people now accept as fact that this is directly based on GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS, and that’s not completely accurate. There are similarities, but when Zak Penn initially proposed this storyline, he was looking to update the ideas and the dynamics of GL,MK without doing a direct adaptation. Remember... this is not comics continuity. This is movie continuity. Stop working so hard to fit this film into some mold you already know. They’re building something new, using older material as a springboard.

There’s also been a lot of talk about what supporting mutants might show up in smaller roles. On last Thursday’s TOUGH ENOUGH, an MTV show about wrestling, one of the cast members let slip that he had auditioned for the role of Colossus. Based on just how many of you e-mailed me about it, I’d say we’ve got a LOT of wrestling fans who read the site. I didn’t mention Colossus in my earlier script review because it’s a brief appearance, and I didn’t want to spoil the fun. When you see the metallic armor slide down into place on his arms, it’s going to be one of those things that makes fanboys squeal. There are other smaller character appearances like that, with rampant rumors now about Hank McCoy and a certain Cajun gambler both appearing, but I refuse to be the one who ruins them. I can tell you that reports of Angel and Madelyne Pryor and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are all inaccurate. Beyond that, my lips are sealed unless the actors themselves spill the beans to the press.

You’ll also see in that article from the Canadian paper that there’s confirmation of the sequence in which the military raids the Xavier School, one of the highlights of the script. I’m excited by everything I’ve heard about this film so far, and I’m looking forward to what we hear now that filming has actually begun. And just to clarify for one of our Talkbackers below... two different storylines were pitched to the producers, one by David Hayter, one by Zak Penn. Once the storyline had been decided on, both writers worked on the same storyline. By the time both Penn and Hayter had moved on to other projects, Mike Doughterty and Dan Harris were brought in to work on the shooting script, only one of which was being prepared. Now, it's true... they have continued to fine-tune the script since the draft I read, but I can tell you conclusively that there are no Sentinels in the script. Never were. That was just a rumor that took on a life of its own. Wait for next year. You'll see how accurate our reporting on the script is. Until then...