X-Men: First Class Writer Wants Breaking Bad Star As The MCU’s Magneto

Ever since Breaking Bad went off the air in 2013, its most prominent cast members have gone on to work on some incredible projects. Bryan Cranston has landed roles in the Godzilla reboot and Isle of Dogs (while also picking up an Oscar nom for Trumbo), Aaron Paul starred in Hulu’s The Path, and a few actors (including Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks) reprised their roles in the spinoff prequel series, Better Call Saul. 

As we reported the other day, rumors are circulating that Giancarlo Esposito – who’s best known for his work as restaurant owner and drug kingpin Gustavo “Gus” Fring – is up for a role within the MCU and some have speculated he’ll take on the part of Norman Osborn, founder of Oscorp.

As always, these sorts of rumors should be taken with a grain of salt, but a few key Hollywood figures have now weighed in on the matter and X-Men: First Class screenwriter Zack Stentz proposed an interesting casting change. As you can see down below, Stentz suggests that Esposito should take on the role of Magneto, the X-Men villain (or anti-hero, depending on your viewpoint) who would, presumably, make a reappearance whenever Marvel gets around to integrating the mutants into the MCU.

Esposito is a brilliant actor who could play nearly any role. But if you wanted to reimagine Magneto as a Tutsi survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide…he'd be pretty amazing. https://t.co/ovvzjTOKSM

— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) August 5, 2019

Zack also suggested that Magneto’s backstory could be rewritten to have him be a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In past iterations, the character was portrayed as a Jewish Holocaust survivor. However, seeing as how the MCU’s present-day is set in 2023, it would be a bit of a stretch to cast anyone under the age of 90 while still adhering to his original backstory.

If he is to make an appearance in the MCU, it’s safe to say that Magneto would require a bit of a redesign, and we certainly wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Giancarlo Esposito as one of the most powerful X-Men.