From Mickey 17 to The Alto Knights, 2025 has an unusually high number of upcoming movies starring lead actors playing multiple different roles. 2025 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for movies. Paul Thomas Anderson has a new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that’s rumored to be a modernized adaptation of Vineland, James Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe will begin proper with the release of Superman, and Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible hero Ethan Hunt is coming back to the big screen one last time for The Final Reckoning.
The movies of 2025 will continue a few ongoing trends in the film industry. The new versions of Lilo & Sтιтch and How to Train Your Dragon will continue the trend of live-action remakes of animated classics. Screamboat and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare will continue the trend of horror movies based on iconic characters in the public domain. It looks like 2025 will start a new trend, too, since four major releases coming out this year have their lead actors playing more than one character.
Several 2025 Movies Feature Actors Playing Multiple Roles
Sinners, Mickey 17, The Alto Knights, & Predator: Badlands All Have Dual Lead Roles
A bunch of upcoming 2025 movies have their lead actors playing multiple roles. Michael B. Jordan is playing twin brothers Elijah and Elias in Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller Sinners. Elle Fanning is set to play two sisters in Dan Trachtenberg’s new futuristic Predator sequel Predator: Badlands. Robert De Niro is playing rival 1950s mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello in Barry Levinson’s crime biopic The Alto Knights. Robert Pattinson will play “expendable” Mickey Barnes and 18 of his clones in Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi satire Mickey 17.
Actors Playing Multiple Roles In The Same Movie Is Becoming More Common
The Multiverse Trend Is Making Dual Roles More Common
Actors playing multiple roles in movies is nothing new: Peter Sellers played three roles in Dr. Strangelove, Tom Hardy played both Kray twins in Legend, and Eddie Murphy played the entire Klump family (except for Ernie, Jr.) in The Nutty Professor. But it’s becoming more common for mainstream movies to feature an actor playing multiple leading roles; it’s a great showcase of their range and comedic talents. In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Jim Carrey played both Dr. Robotnik and his grandfather Gerald.
It’s becoming more common for mainstream movies to feature an actor playing multiple leading roles; it’s a great showcase of their range and comedic talents.
This trend can largely be attributed to the trend of multiversal storytelling in comic book movies. Benedict Cumberbatch played multiple variants of Stephen Strange in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Ezra Miller played a pair of mismatched Barry Allens in The Flash. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman played multiple variants of their тιтular mutants in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine. As long as superhero movies keep exploring the limitless possibilities of the multiverse, their actors will have plenty of alternative roles to play.
