{IMAGE_2}X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer announced today that three new actors will take on the key roles of Storm, Cyclops, and Jean Grey in the film, which is set in the 1980s and thus features younger versions of the iconic X-Men characters.  Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), and Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner (Jean Grey) are the newcomers who will take on the roles played by Halle Berry, James Marsden, and Famke Janssen in Singer’s original X-Men Trilogy that debuted way back in 2000.  In November Singer announced that Oscar Isaac would play the key role of the villain Apocalypse (see "Apocalypse Cast for 'X-Men' Movie").

Singer himself tweeted the news of the three new actors joining the ranks of Marvel’s masterful mutants.  Alexandra Shipp starred in the made for TV film Aailyah: The Princess of R&B and also has a role in the forthcoming Straight Out of Compton movie, while Tye Sheridan appeared in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and in the indie hit Mud, while Sophie Turner is well known for her role as Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones.

Set just a decade after the 1970s sections of X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse will feature James McAvoy as Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr rather than the older versions of the characters of Professor X and Magneto who have been played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (see "Apocalypse Costume Will Employ CGI").