Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.
For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things Bosch, Mission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider's news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch.
He is proficient in sarcasm, wit, Photoshop and working unfeasibly long hours. Amongst his passions sit the likes of the history of the Walt Disney Company, the construction of theme parks, steam trains and binge-watching Gilmore Girls with a coffee that is just hot enough to scald him.
His obsession with the Apple TV+ series Silo is the subject of mockery within the Senior News channel, where his feelings about Taylor Sheridan's work are enough to make his fellow writers roll their eyes.
A new generation of mutants needs its leader, and just as Captain America has run the Avengers, just as Reed Richards has run the Fantastic Four, and just as Yelena Belova has, well, run a bath in New York, so has Charles Xavier run the X-Men for generations. He's one of the most iconic characters in comic book history, and now there is a new man in the chair.
Christopher Abbott has officially been cast as Xavier, better known as Professor X, in Marvel Studios’ upcoming X-Men reboot. Abbott becomes the latest actor to take on the enormously important Marvel character following Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy, who portrayed different generations of Xavier across 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise.
Abbott has quietly established himself as one of Hollywood’s most interesting performers over the past decade. He earned a Golden Globe nomination for Catch-22, starred opposite Emma Stone in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, and recently transformed into the title character for Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man. Now, he’s getting the keys to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Director Jake Schreier, fresh from helming Thunderbolts*, is directing Marvel’s reboot, with Lee Sung Jin (Beef) and Joanna Calo (The Bear) writing the screenplay.
COLLIDER
Collider · Quiz
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival QuizWhich Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
QUESTION 1 / 8INSTINCT
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?The first instinct is often the truest one.
QUESTION 2 / 8RESOURCE
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
QUESTION 3 / 8THREAT
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night?Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.
QUESTION 4 / 8AUTHORITY
04
How do you deal with authority you don't trust?Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
QUESTION 5 / 8ENVIRONMENT
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term?Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
QUESTION 6 / 8ALLIANCE
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
QUESTION 7 / 8MORALITY
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.
QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE
08
What would actually make survival worth it?Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
Your Fate Has Been CalculatedYou'd Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.
You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.
The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.
You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
Who Is Charles Xavier in the ‘X-Men’ Comics?
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Charles Xavier debuted alongside his students in X-Men #1 in 1963 and is one of the foundational characters of the entire franchise. Xavier is an enormously powerful telepath who decides to establish his school in order to create a worldin which humans and mutants can co-exist which, to the surprise of nobody, proves to be a pipe dream. Xavier is famous for using Cerebro, his own developed technology which can detect any mutant across enormous distances.
Abbott will also be following two performances that defined the character for generations of moviegoers. Stewart first played Xavier in 2000’s X-Men before returning throughout the original franchise and eventually entering the MCU as a variant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Indeed, Stewart will be reprising the role for a final time (surely) in Avengers: Doomsday. McAvoy subsequently took over as the younger Xavier beginning with X-Men: First Class in 2011.
In a world where mutants (evolved super-powered humans) exist and are discriminated against, two groups form for an inevitable clash: the supremacist Brotherhood, and the pacifist X-Men.
Logan / Wolverine
Xavier
