Casting changes for X-Men: Days of Future Past and Inherent Vice: January Jones and Robert Downey Jr are out

We have two casting changes for pretty big films. One of them makes me a little sad, but gives me hope for the project anyway. The other involves January Jones.

First up, it looks like Robert Downey, Jr. will not be working with Paul Thomas Anderson after all. The pair were set to work on INHERENT VICE, based on the Thomas Pynchon novel. The neo-noir film that takes place in Miami would have featured Downey as a pot-smoking detective alongside a slew of characters with quirky, original names, from Shasta Fay Hepworth and Riggs Warbling to Japonica Fenway and Adrian Prussia.

But, don’t get too sad. It looks like PT Anderson alum Joaquin Phoenix may be stepping into the vacated role. Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar for his role in THE MASTER, so we know he and the director can get along. Hopefully this comes true because while I would have loved to see Downey take on the part, I am absolutely okay with Phoenix as a replacement.

On the other hand, the loss of January Jones in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is not a dealbreaker for me. Sure, she is pretty and looks the role of Emma Frost, but Jones is not that great of an actress. She came off as the wrong kind of cold in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. But, her absence may not be related to acting ability but rather the needs of the story.

Jones told MovieWeb “I don’t know that I’m in it, I don’t think Emma’s in this one. Well they haven’t told me if I am (laughs). I wouldn’t put it past them though, I got the script for the first one on the airplane on the way there. It’s called Days of Future Past I think, and I think it’s more about James (McAvoy) and Michael (Fassbender) and then Patrick (Stewart) and Ian (McKellen), and I think it’s gonna go back and forth with those so I don’t think Emma’s in those bits. I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

Unless I am wrong, Emma Frost left with Magneto at the end of FIRST CLASS, so she would kind of be directly involved with him in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, assuming they don’t write it off as something that happened between films. Whether recast or dropped from the sequel entirely, I am too excited for the dueling Magneto and Xaviers to worry about Betty Draper.

What do you think of the casting changes?

INHERENT VICE has no release date and X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is scheduled to open on july 18, 2014.