By April 2016, Mangold had chosen Boyd Holbrook to portray the main antagonist of the movie, the chief of security for a global corporation that is pursuing Wolverine. Also by April, Richard E. Grant was cast as a villainous mad scientist, and Stephen Merchant had also been cast. In May, Eriq Lasalle and Elise Neal were cast supporting roles, and Elizabeth Rodriguez entered negotiations for a small but key role. Also in May, producer Simon Kinberg revealed that filming had already begun, and confirmed that the movie would be R-rated; regarding the setting and tonality, he stated, "It takes place in the future, and as you and others have reported, it is an R-rated movie. It's violent, it's kind of like a western in its tone. It's just a very cool, different film." The film included some vintage X-Men comic books, used both to advance the plot and as a metafictional reference. The director clarified that Marvel Comics allowed this on the condition that they could use actual characters and designs, but not use any real comic book issues. As a result, the comic book covers and pages seen in the film were made specifically for it, by writer Joe Quesada and artist Dan Panosian. Mangold commented that "The reality was that, like in Unforgiven, when [Clint] Eastwood runs into Richard Harris, who’s writing these fictional accounts of the great Western heroes, or Pat Garrett in Billy the Kid, where you’ve got these aging heroes who kind of are twilight versions of their own legends — I think that idea, of being a kind of celebrity, or like a sports star long past your heyday, was really interesting for me to investigate with this kind of world." Panosian made 10 fake comic book covers, and interior arts were unused. He pointed that the arts had to resemble the style used in the Bronze Age of Comic Books, and pointed that they also served to contrast their campy style with the darker tone of the live-action film itself. He said that "The colors and art itself juxtaposed against the raw and savage world in the film capture just how much innocence has been lost over time". On March 5, 2015, James Mangold anticipated that filming would begin "early next year." Prior to filming, the film was given the false title of "Juarez" to lower the visibility of production, but the local media eventually uncovered the ruse. On March 1, 2016, "The Times-Picayune" had confirmed that Mangold's film is preparing to shoot in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a starting schedule of May.