Numerous classic and relatively new X-Men villains have appeared on the big screen since Fox’s film series kicked off in 2000, including Magneto, Cassandra Nova, Sebastian Shaw, and Bolivar Trask. However, one of the most iconic evil Mutants in comic-book history has never appeared before on the silver screen, and Marvel Studios found the perfect actor to bring this character to life.

Adam Driver goes from Star Wars to X-Men

Adam Driver revealed at D23 that he’ll be playing Nathaniel Milbury aka Mister Sinister in the 2028 X-Men film. Driver previously played Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He had also partnered with director Steven Soderbergh on a follow-up film titled The Hunt for Ben Solo, however, then-Disney CEO Bob Iger reportedly killed the movie even after Lucasfilm's former boss Kathleen Turner had given it the green light. The fate of that film under the current Disney/Lucasfilm regime remains unknown.

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has admitted to chasing Driver for years before finally getting him to sign on as the villain of X-Men. Presumably, Sinister will only appear as the villain in this one film, though it's possible Driver's contract also gives Marvel the option to bring him back in the future. We'll just have to wait and find out.

The long road to bringing Mister Sinister into the X-Men movies

Driver notably wasn't the first actor set up to play Mister Sinister in a movie. Jon Hamm was meant to play Sinister in a post-credits scene for Josh Boone’s 2020 film The New Mutants. One of Sinister’s other aliases is Nathaniel Essex, and his Essex Corporation runs the facility where five mutant teens are held captive and tested in Boone’s film. Hamm said he’s a huge fan of comic books, especially the X-Men, and was excited to be considered for the role, though the scenes were never filmed. The New Mutants was a box office bomb, and the entire production was a debacle, with delays and reshoots complicated by Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

The Essex Corp. was previously teased in the post-credits scene for Bryan Singer’s 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse, which showed a group of men in black suits investigating the wreckage of a facility where William Stryker, Jr. was experimenting on mutants. They gather a blood sample for Weapon X and add it to a collection of other samples in a briefcase with the logo Essex Corp. But instead of Sinister, the next X-Men film, 2019's Dark Phoenix from Simon Kinberg, reprised the villain who previously appeared in Brett Ratner's 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand.

Nathaniel Essex was a contemporary of Charles Darwin who was focused on perfecting human evolution. Apocalypse, who is also obsessed with survival of the fittest, granted Essex immortality. Sinister is especially fixated on Jean Gray and Scott Summers, believing that their offspring would be the ultimate mutant. He even went so far as to create a clone of Jean Gray he named Madelyne Pryor. In the 2028 film, Driver’s Sinister will be tormenting Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey and Kit Connor’s Cyclops. If you want a taste of what that will look like, check out the wild X-Men ‘97 season 1 episode “Fire Made Flesh.”

Marvel Studios' X-Men releases in theaters on May 5, 2028.