By Emmanuel King
Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot is close to completing its founding class. Ben Wang is circling the role of Bobby Drake, better known as Iceman, in the X-Men film director Jake Schreier is building for Marvel, according to Deadline, which reported the talks on Monday, November 2. Wang is said to have emerged as the studio's choice from a screen-test field that also included Gabriel LaBelle, Jackson Kelly and Rhenzy Feliz, each of whom tested for the part. Marvel and Disney have not confirmed the casting, and representatives for Marvel could not be reached for comment in Deadline's report, so this is trade reporting rather than an announcement, and it should be read that way until Marvel says otherwise.
The founding five, nearly complete
Iceman is not a supporting slot. Bobby Drake was one of the original five X-Men introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in The X-Men No. 1 in September 1963, alongside Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Angel, and he has been a fixture of the team ever since. In live action, the role belonged to Shawn Ashmore across the 20th Century Fox films, where Bobby grew from a student at Xavier's school into one of the series' most recognizable mutants.
Schreier's reboot is plainly being built around that original class. Sadie Sink is set as Jean Grey, a role she takes up first in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with Kit Connor reported as Cyclops and Asa Germann as Angel. Peter Claffey has been reported as Beast. Add Wang as Iceman and all five founders are on the board. Around them, the reported ensemble has grown quickly: Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Maya Boyd as Storm, Inde Navarrette as Rogue and Adam Driver as the villain Mister Sinister. Schreier, who directed Thunderbolts for Marvel, is working from a script by his Beef collaborator Lee Sung Jin with Joanna Calo, and Kevin Feige is producing. The film is dated for May 5, 2028, positioned as the launch of the next era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Avengers: Secret Wars closes the current one.
A résumé built in stages
What makes Wang's name land at the top of that screen-test list is the shape of the last few years. He led the Disney Plus series American Born Chinese, then stepped into a legacy franchise as Li Fong in Karate Kid: Legends, holding his own opposite Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio. He followed that with The Long Walk, the Stephen King adaptation directed by Francis Lawrence, and he reunites with Lawrence this month in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, where he plays District 12 tribute Wyatt Callow. The film opens November 20. Exhibitors saw this trajectory early: at CinemaCon in April 2025, where Wang was in Las Vegas promoting Karate Kid: Legends, he was honored with the convention's Star of Tomorrow award.
Notice the pattern. Each step has been a step up in scale, and each has asked something different of him: a streaming lead role, a martial arts legacy sequel, an ensemble survival drama, a tentpole prequel. That is the profile studios look for when they cast a franchise team meant to last a decade. The actor has already been tested by big sets, big expectations and properties with protective fan bases, and he is young enough to grow up inside the role the way the original five are supposed to.
What Iceman does for the actor who lands him
For a working actor, a founding-member role in a reboot like this one is career infrastructure. It means a multi-picture future inside the biggest franchise in film, an ensemble spotlight rather than the pressure of carrying a tentpole alone, and a character with more than sixty years of recognition behind him. Bobby Drake also tends to become the emotional entry point of the team: the youngest of the original class in the comics, funny, warm and powerful enough that later writers elevated him to the top tier of Marvel's mutants. Ashmore's run showed the arc available to the actor who plays him well, from first-day student to veteran across fourteen years of films.
There is a second, quieter benefit. Marvel is resetting its universe around this cast. The actors chosen now are the faces the next era gets introduced with, in the way the 2008 and 2011 classes defined the last one. For Wang, whose biggest roles so far have been inside other people's legacies, Iceman would be the first franchise cornerstone that is his from day one.
How these teams actually get built
None of it is official until the deal closes, and Deadline's own language is careful: Wang has entered talks, and the role is his if the deal makes. The field he came out of says plenty about the level Marvel is casting at. LaBelle carried The Fabelmans for Steven Spielberg, Kelly is a regular on The Pitt and Feliz appeared in The Penguin. Studios do not run screen tests at that level for a one-off appearance. They test for chemistry, for how a face reads next to the four actors already chosen, and for who can still be playing the part in ten years.
Until Marvel confirms, Wang's November belongs to Sunrise on the Reaping, and his representatives and the studio are saying nothing. But if the deal closes the way Deadline's sources expect, the founding five are complete, and the reboot has its Iceman: an actor the business has been quietly promoting, one franchise at a time, toward exactly this kind of break.