UPDATE: Obsession has crossed $500 million worldwide, making it the second-biggest horror movie in history.
Six months ago she was the sixth lead on a canceled CW show. Now she is an X-Man. Inde Navarrette was revealed as Rogue at Friday’s D23 panel, joining Marvel’s X-Men movie opening May 5, 2028.
It caps the fastest rise of anyone on this roster, and it comes with a twist she did not see coming either.
Who Is Inde Navarrette?
Navarrette, 25, is from Tucson, Arizona, and paid her dues in television with a run on 13 Reasons Why before landing Sarah Cushing on Superman & Lois, playing Lana Lang’s daughter across all four seasons.
Then Obsession happened, and her career detonated overnight.
The Obsession Effect
Curry Barker’s Obsession is the box office story of the year that nobody predicted. Made for around $750,000, the horror hit has grossed $501.6 million worldwide, growing its second weekend by more than 30 percent on pure word of mouth and TikTok momentum. It is now the second-highest-grossing horror movie ever made, behind only It.
Navarrette’s performance as Nikki is the reason it works, and it has her in the awards conversation this fall. Fun detail: her Obsession co-star Michael Johnston voices young Cable in X-Men ’97 season 2, so both leads of a $750K horror movie ended up mutants.
She Wanted Mystique. She Got Mystique’s Daughter.
Here is the twist. Navarrette spent her post-Obsession press tour openly campaigning to play Mystique, and confirmed she had met with director Jake Schreier.
Marvel gave her Rogue instead. And in the comics, Mystique is Rogue’s adoptive mother, the woman who raised her and turned her into a weapon. If Mystique ever enters this franchise, Navarrette is standing at the center of that story anyway.
Who Is Rogue?
Created by Chris Claremont and Michael Golden, Rogue debuted as a villain in 1981’s Avengers Annual #10, a member of Mystique’s Brotherhood who permanently absorbed Carol Danvers’ powers before defecting to the X-Men in 1983.
The Mississippi southern belle absorbs the memories and abilities of anyone she touches, which means she can never touch anyone. It is the most tragic power set in the franchise and one of its most beloved characters.
Fixing The Anna Paquin Problem
Anna Paquin played Rogue across four Fox films starting with 2000’s X-Men. She was the audience’s way into that franchise, but the films stripped the character down to a frightened kid defined by what she couldn’t do.
The sass, the flight, the super strength, the Ms. Marvel history: none of it made the screen. X-Men ’97 reminded everyone what a full-power Rogue looks like, and that is the version fans expect Navarrette to play.
The voice of that Rogue agrees. Lenore Zann has already welcomed Navarrette to the role in a video from Dublin, gloves on of course, a year after telling the next live-action Rogue to study the cartoons first.
Cameras roll next year on the Jake Schreier film. Watch the full D23 reveal here, and track release date, full cast, villain, and every rumor in our X-Men guide, and meet her teammates: Maya Boyd’s Storm, Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, and Adam Driver’s secret villain.
