Claws For Thought: Richard E. Grant's Role Revealed For 'Logan'

Those hoping for a "sinister" turn of events for Richard E. Grant's role in the upcoming Logan film will be sadly disappointed. Since the 59-year-old's casting back in April as a "mad scientist," many had hoped that the proper Englishman could be portraying Mister Sinister, the next logical villain after Oscar Isaac's Apocalypse. Sadly, Hugh Jackman took to Twitter with a usual sombre Logan picture in black and white. The caption stated "Rice. Logan. 3.3.17." Well that debunks that theory!

Rice To Meet You

It looks like Richard E. Grant will be playing Dr. Zander Rice. Comic book readers will know that Dr. Rice has long ties to both Wolverine and X-23, which is presumably why the character will be included. His father, Dale Rice, worked on the original Weapon X Project and was killed by an escaping Wolverine. Seeing as we saw the Wolverine escape scene play out in X-Men: Apocalypse, there is a nice bit of continuity.

In the comics, a young Zander Rice, angered by his father's death, grows up to be instrumental in creating the female X-23 clone. Now that Dafne Keen has been confirmed to play Laura Kinney (X-23's actual name) and Boyd Holbrook as the Big Bad of Logan, it all ties together nicely. Expect Grant's Dr. Rice to be the man pulling the strings as the man in charge of Holbrook's Donald Pierce, who's character reveal was done in the same way as Grant's.

Pierce is the cyborg villain and constant enemy of the X-Men, who will probably go on the hunt for X-23 after everything goes tits up. Don't expect Grant to be making it out of Logan alive though, Zander meets a similar fate to his father, ultimately killed by X-23. Whether it will be Jackman or Keen who does the skewering is unknown, but given the film's R-rating, we can hope for a suitably bloody finale.

A Sinister Twist

Damn, he would have made a very sinister Mister Sinister. Although Sinister is sure to return at some point down the line in the X-verse, it looks like he won't be played by Richard E. Grant. Fans will remain puzzled though, on the audio commentary for Apocalypse, Bryan Singer confirmed that Mister Sinister would first appear in Logan. Since then, Logan's director, James Mangold, sent a tweet that casts into doubt Sinister's appearance, but we aren't so sure:

What if Mangold is double bluffing and using Rice's death for the origins of Mister Sinister? Doubtful, but possible — there is still hope, conspiracy theorists, there is still hope!

Sinister played a large part in both Scott Summers and Jean Grey's storylines as well as the X-Men: The Animated Series from the '90s, so it does make more sense that he would appear in the upcoming '90s-era X-Men continuation than the final Wolverine solo set in the far future. However, given that he also plays a big part in the Gambit storyline involving X-23, he could just as easily play the villain in that ever-delayed Gambit solo. In the meantime, we will have to make do with Richard E. Grant butting heads with Hugh Jackman — better get sharpening those claws.