'Logan': Boyd Holbrook Is Playing X-Men Villain Donald Pierce

In April, Narcos star Boyd Holbrook was cast as the villain in James Mangold's sequel to The Wolverine, but his actual role was kept under wraps. Months flew by. Seasons changed. Filming continued. A teaser poster revealed that revealed the third and final Wolverine movie will simply be titled Logan. Mangold teased an ancient-looking Professor X. And now, finally we know which villain Holbrook is playing: Donald Pierce.

No, you don't have to just smile and nod. That's not the most famous X-Men villain the world. It's okay to rush to Google. Here's the short version. In the X-Men comics, Pierce is a mutant-hating cyborg with connections to the Hellfire Club (last seen in X-Men: First Class). He goes on to build a team of deadly cyborgs called the Reavers that operate with one mission: kill mutants. In the comics, the Reavers – who are all but confirmed to play a role in Logan – do a number on Wolverine, torturing and crucifying(!) him. We had heard stories that this film was going to be rated R, but yeeesh.

The news that Boyd Holbrook is playing Donald Pierce arrived on Instagram. One word accompanied the first photo of Mr. Holbrook in character: "Pierce." So there you go. From this angle, it's hard to tell if he's still a cyborg, especially since his bulky metal comic book body could be easily redesigned into something sleek and easy to hide under a jacket.

But what does this mean for Mr. Sinister, the far more famous X-Men villain who Bryan Singer says plays a role in Logan? We haven't heard any casting news and the film already has another bad guy in Richard E. Grant, who is playing a "mad scientist" of some kind. If Mr. Sinister is in the movie, will he be central to the plot or just another cameo?

In any case, Pierce is the kind of villain who sounds more in line with Mangold's vision for Logan, which sounds like a more stripped-down and adult-oriented superhero tale. Mangold shared a page from the screenplay last week, which included this note to the reader:

Basically, if you're on the make for a hyper choreographed, gravity defying, city-block destroying CG f–kathon, this ain't your movie," reads a page from the script, which Mangold shared this week. "In this flick, people get hurt or killed when shit falls on them. They will get just as hurt or just as killed if they get hit with something big and heavy, like, say, a car. Should anyone in our story have the misfortune to fall off a roof or out a window, they won't bounce. They will die.

Logan is set to open on March 3, 2017.