Olivia Munn Cast as Psylocke in 'X-Men: Apocalypse,' Replacing Jennifer Lawrence as Main Female Lead

With the ever-popular Jennifer Lawrence stepping down from her role as Mystique and leaving the X-Men franchise for good, Bryan Singer is probably hoping a new, main female lead will step up to the plate. This is probably why he cast Olivia Munn to play the ninja telepath Psylocke in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse film. Singer made the big announcement on his Instagram this week.

With her new role, the sky's the limit for Munn. Lawrence's career transformed after taking up the Mystique mantle in X-Men: First Class. After that movie, she found herself in huge box office draws the likes of Silver Linings Playbook, the Hunger Games and American Hustle. The same is possible for Munn.

In case you need some catching up to do on Psylocke, you'll have to go all the way back to the 1970s and '80s. Psylocke is a Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe creation and first appeared in the Captain Britain series. It wasn't until her debut in Uncanny X-Men No. 213 did she finally become a mainstay in the Marvel Universe.

Excited to welcome @oliviamunn as Betsy Braddock! #Psylocke #XmenApocalypse #XMEN

A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Apr 13, 2015 at 1:04pm PDT

If the X-Men ever come over to Disney, it'll be interesting to see what kind of crossovers you can do. If Marvel ever gets to making a Captain Britain movie, she can be featured in it, since she is his sister. She could even show up in the Netflix hit Daredevil as a member of the team S.T.R.I.K.E. Alan Moore wrote her into the Matt Murdock timeline in March 1983 for the U.K. version of the blind lawyer's series.

X-Men: Apocalypse looks like it'll have a great cast. Lawrence will be reprising Mystique for the last time, Hugh Jackman will continue on as Wolverine and Evan Peters of American Horror Story fame will hopefully have a larger role as Quicksilver. Some newcomers are Sophie Turner, who'll be playing Jean Grey, Rose Byrne will be Moira MacTaggert and Oscar Isaac will be Apocalypse.