Dear Matthew Vaughn: please, please, please… stop. No, we don’t mean stop slaving away in pre-production on X-Men: First Class.  We really want to see what you do with the Marvel mutants’ early days. What we’d like you to do is lock down the drip feed of casting information, which has led to writing more stories about one project than almost anything since Captain bloomin’ America  (also a superhero project spearheaded by Marvel… hmmm). While we wait for the man who made Kick-Ass to nail down the last few remaining cast members (and hopefully just release all the names in one go), here’s the latest nugget of actor movement, with news that Oliver Platt has joined the film.

No need to start speculating on which mutant he’ll be portraying or what power he’ll have: he’s more likely going to be flustered and angry as a government agent called the Man In Black. Of course, he could turn out to be something more, but we’re betting he’s been hired to be more of a human nuisance to our X-heroes.

Vaughn will kick off shooting on the film later this month with the roll call already including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Jason Flemyng, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Bacon and Alice Eve.

There’s no accurate info on exactly what part of the X-Men story will be told (aside from following McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Fassbender’s Erik Lensherr as they start to bring the team together and the event that rips the two old friends apart), but hopefully we’ll have more as the production gears up.

Next week: word breaks on the company that will provide the tea urns for the production.