A brand new black-and-white photo has surfaced on the official “Logan” Instagram account today, giving us our first look at Richard E. Grant’s villain.
The post is simply captioned “Rice,” confirming TheWrap’s previous reporting that Grant is indeed playing a version of the villainous Marvel character Dr. Zander Rice, the mad scientist behind Transigen — a global corporation known which has been turning young mutants into killing machines.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNwtX5hjjyG/
In the Marvel comics, Dr. Rice was the surgical head of the project which created X-23. Dale Rice, Zander’s father, worked on the original Weapon X Project where he was killed by an escaping Wolverine as he fled with a briefcase full of information about the project. Years later, Zander — now called Dr. Rice — became the surgical head on a project to recreate the Weapon X procedure.
As previously reported, “Logan” is set in 2024 and follows an older, more weary Wolverine, who now has to take care of a sick Professor X with the help of another mutant, Califdban. Mutant births are in decline due to an unknown reason, but Logan and the Professor come across a young girl named Laura, who has similar powers to the former and is being hunted by Transigen.
The film also stars Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X, Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce, Stephen Merchant as Caliban and Dafne Keen as Laura Kinney, with Elizabeth Rodriguez, Eriq La Salle and Elise Neal.
“Logan” will be released on March 3, 2017.