Age Lift / Live-Action Films

• The Addams Family:
  • The movies feature Wednesday as a young teenager or tween, as opposed to the TV show in which she was a little girl.
  • Across the franchise, Wednesday was younger than Pugsley in The Addams Family from 1964 but subsequent depictions of the family make her the eldest child.
• Billy Batson is usually 9-12 years old. In the 1940s serials The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Billy is in his late teens at youngest.
• Adolfo Celi played the role of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici in the 1965 film The Agony and the Ecstasy. When the film was made Celi was in his early to mid 40s. The real Cardinal de' Medici was only in his early to mid 30s while the Sistine Chapel ceiling was being painted.^note Cardinal de' Medici would be elected Pope at the age of 37 after Julius died.
• Most adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland do this with the title character, who is only 7 years old in the books, but usually played by actresses who are at least 12, more often in their teens. The 1985 TV version and the very surreal and creepy 1988 Czech version accurately portray her as a 7-year-old, though, as does Tim Burton's sequel in its prologue and flashbacks.
• The 1994 Made-for-TV Movie of Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, opens with a small girl having the book read to her by her mother, played by Kate Beckinsdale. It's the twentysomething mother who travels through the looking glass and becomes Alice.
• The Amazing Spider-Man:
  • From the first film, Captain Stacy like the Jim Gordon example below is a grey haired old man in the comics, but played the younger Denis Leary in the film. Then again George Stacy is depicted as younger in Ultimate Spider-Man which the film takes inspiration from, with the Darker and Edgier tone.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sees then 62 year old Chris Cooper play Norman Osborn, who was canonically established on Mark Millar's run on the Marvel Knights Spider-Man title to be in his mid-fifties at the time, which given those comics had a 20+ year old Peter Parker and the film had a teen Peter like the early comics, means a faithful Osborn would be in his 40s.
• Most adaptations of Anne of Green Gables age up the main character, and by extension, her peers. She is 11 at the start of the first book, while most adaptations, such as the Kevin Sullivan 1985 mini-series, age her up to 13/14. This is likely for practical reasons, as the first book spans about five years, and aging her up allows the same actress to play her throughout without the need for recasting.
• A very slight example: in the stage version of Annie, Annie is eleven years old, but the 1982 film lowers her age to ten, which was her actress Aileen Quinn's age during filming. The 1997 20th Anniversary revival of the stage version also lowered her age to ten, because her actress Brittny Kissinger was only eight and even less passable as eleven than Quinn had been.
• In Artemis Fowl Juliet is 12, the same age as Artemis, instead of the 16-year-old teenager she was in the first Artemis Fowl book.
• Batman Film Series:
  • While his exact age is never stated in canon, it's generally assumed that The Joker is around the same age as Batman. In Batman (1989), Jack Napier was a young man when he killed Thomas and Martha Wayne.
  • The character of Robin as originated by Dick Grayson always has the origin of his parents being killed during a circus act when he was a pre-teen, not too different than with his adopted father Bruce Wayne. Batman Forever cast 25-year-old Chris O'Donnell in the role and Bruce comments that his superhero name should be "Dick Grayson, College Student" and that is as far as they get to identifying his age. It has the side effect of conflating his history and personality as both Robin and Nightwing, being pragmatic for a film adaptation.
• The Batman (2022):
  • The 2022 film depicts the youngest Dark Knight since Christian Bale in Batman Begins, with the 35 year old Robert Pattinson who's been able to get away with playing high-school aged characters in the past and In-Universe implied to be in his mid to late 20s. Batman's youthfulness in this iteration is effectively used (much like Batman: Year One) to convey his immaturity and inexperience as a crimefighter as well as awkwardness as in his civilian identity to show he's Just a Kid.
  • Played With in regards to Zoë Kravitz's Catwoman. While younger than Michelle Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle in Batman Returns, she's not technically the youngest actor to play Catwoman cinematically, which goes to the 30 year old Anne Hathaway's Selina in The Dark Knight Rises. However In-Universe, since Selina's mother died in 2004 (as revealed on her gravestone) when she was 7, she is likely 24 or 25 in the present, making the Dirty Old Man comments and leers she gets from DA Gil Colson and others especially uncomfortable.
  • The Riddler who is usually a depicted as a middle-aged man in the comics is played by the 37 year old Paul Dano and is In-Universe is strongly implied to be around the same age as Bruce and Selina, having known Bruce since childhood. Although Riddler has been portrayed by younger actors before, such as the 33 year old Jim Carrey in Batman Forever.
  • Alfred, who in the past hasn't been cinematically played by any actor below their 60s and 70s in the past, is portrayed by Andy Serkis at 58 (56 when it first started filming). Since the film borrows elements from Batman: Earth One such as Alfred being the Wanyes' bodyguard, who actually trains Bruce to fight himself, it makes sense he'd be younger in this version.
• In the novel of Beaches, the friends Cee Cee and Bertie meet at the respective ages of ten and seven, and first reunite in their teens. The movie changes things so both are eleven when they first meet, then reunite when they're in their twenties. This was likely due to not wanting to cast separate actresses for the girls' teenage years, the fact that Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey couldn't play that young, and probably to have less of an age difference between the two characters.
• Blade Trilogy:
  • Blade does this to both the title character and Deacon Frost. Blade's year of birth was shifted from 1929 (hence being older than he looks) to 1967 and Stephen Dorff was cast as Deacon Frost, causing the character to have a younger appearance than the white-haired old man in the comics.
  • Blade: Trinity sees its version of Dracula, Drake, claim to have seen the crucifixion of Jesus. The Dracula from The Tomb of Dracula was presented, like his counterparts in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Hellsing, as the actual historical figure that inspired his creation, Vlad the Impaler, made into a vampire afterward.
• Blood & Chocolate (2007) changes the ages of many characters from the novel:
  • Vivian and Aiden are aged up a few years to be college-aged; Vivian is stated to be 19. In the book, Vivian is 16 and she and Aiden meet at high school. This was one of the (many) changes that irked author Annette Curtis Klause, because she felt that it "kind of negates the whole point of the plot - werewolves could be sitting right next to you in your high school homeroom."
  • Gabriel is 24 in the book, where as here he appears to be in his thirties at least (Olivier Martinez was actually about 40). Obviously, this and the fact he's the father of her cousin makes his romantic interest in Vivian a lot less healthy and sympathetic.
  • The Five are all teenagers in the book, while here they appear to have been aged up to their twenties.
• The 1979 film Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline cast Audrey Hepburn in a leading role. Hepburn was in her 50s, but the character was written as being in her 30s. Hepburn looked great, but could never pass for someone in her 30s, so not only did an age lift occur in the film, Sheldon went back and revised his own novel for new editions, raising the character's age to match that of the film.
• Bones and All: In the book, Maren is sixteen, whereas she is eighteen in the film.
• Jason Bourne is a Vietnam veteran in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity and its sequels, but in the 2002 movie, The Bourne Identity, he is clearly not old enough to have served then, particularly due to being portrayed by Matt Damon who was only 4 1/2 yrs old when the war ended. Conversely, he was portrayed in the 1988 mini series of the same name by Richard Chamberlain who was 21 when the war began, so if anything, he was slightly too old.
• In the book and made-for-tv versions of Bridge to Terabithia Leslie and Jesse are ten. The 2007 film aged them up to twelve.
• Casper: In the prior cartoons and comics, Casper was a prepubescent boy instead of a preteen, so crushes and romance never came up.
• In the Chaos Walking books Todd and Viola are both around thirteen years old. They're clearly much older in the film, presumably intended to be in their late teens (Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley were both in their twenties during filming and definitely don't pass for young teens).
• A Christmas Carol:
  • Adaptations often do this with Ebenezer Scrooge in order to emphasize that this is his Last Chance to become a good man, casting him as a geriatric grumpy old man, while a close read of the book puts him at most in the mid-to-late fifties (his nephew, who Scrooge is distant to because he reminds him to much of his beloved sister who died young, possibly in childbirth, is apparently in his mid-to-late twenties). He is also stated to be spry enough and live long enough to become "a second father to Tiny Tim".
  • The 1951 and 1984 film versions portray Scrooge's sister Fan as the elder sibling, when in the book she's much younger than he is. This is done to allow Scrooge's mother to have died when he was born, leading to his father to blame him for it and neglect him. These two versions also portray both Fan and young Scrooge as young adults when she brings him home from boarding school, when in the book they're children at that point.
• The Chronicles of Narnia:
  • The Pevensie Children are a bit older in the Walden Media films than they were in the books. Peter is 13-14 but William Moseley was 16 when the first film was made. Caspian in the books is said to be the same age as Peter so the second film ages him up too. The age differences are notable in all of the actors since only a year has passed between the first and second films, but they were filmed three years apart.
  • The '80s BBC adaptation also does this with Edmund and Lucy - their actor and actress were in their early teens, while in the books the characters are 10-13 and 8-11, respectively. Peter and Susan are the ages of their book counterparts, though - which creates the sense that Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie had all four of of their children in extremely short succession.
• In the film adaptation of The Clan of the Cave Bear, the first book in the Earth's Children series, Ayla appears to be in her twenties, or possibly her late teens, during the second half of the movie (Daryl Hannah was about 25 during filming). In the book, she was only fourteen by the end of the novel and didn't reach her twenties until the last book. This was probably done for practical/ethical reasons, given that the book depicts Ayla being raped by Broud and giving birth to Durc when she's only eleven years old.
• Clifford the Big Red Dog: In the original book series, Emily Elizabeth is in elementary school. In the film, she is in middle school.
• In the book of A Clockwork Orange, the band of droogies were adolescents of 15. When Stanley Kubrick chose Malcolm McDowell for the role of Alex, all were aged up accordingly. Echoes of the book occur when Alex is depicted as school age and when (years later) Dim describes himself and his partner as "of job age" in the scene where they torture Alex.
  • The book includes a scene where Alex lures two ten-year-old girls to his apartment, then drugs and rapes them. The film switches this to him having a consensual threesome with two girls his own age. While one can understand Kubrick for not wanting to adapt the pedophilia scene (especially since this film is rather blatant with nudity), this changes the scene from "Alex is even more of a deranged psycho than you thought" to "Deranged psychos like Alex get to have awesome sex!"
• Cloud Atlas: In the book, Zachry is a young man who lives with his mother and siblings. In the film, he's a middle-aged man living with his widowed sister and niece. The change was necessary for Tom Hanks to play the part.
• The Crucible is based on true events, but the affair between Abigail Williams and John Proctor was not one of them. In real life Abigail was 11 and John was in his 60s.
• The Dark Knight Trilogy:
  • Commissioner Jim Gordon for decades in comics has been depicted as a grey-haired older man (with the exceptions of Batman: Year One and The Long Halloween where he's younger). In Batman Begins the brown-haired 47 year old Gary Oldman portrays Gordon and is still in his prime by the end of the trilogy. Funnily enough later comic continuity, such as the The New 52 and DC Rebirth would follow the film's example and have Gordon be younger than he was in the pre and post crisis comics.
  • Batman, who is usually around his mid 30s in comics and was previously played by a 38 year old Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) was played a 31 year old Christian Bale in Batman Begins the youngest Batman has been portrayed cinematically, although Bale was a case of Younger Than They Look.
  • The Dark Knight Rises sees with Bane. While Tom Hardy was indeed the right age to play a more comic-accurate version of the character during filming, he's actually older than his traditional contemporaries Batman and Talia, since Bane acted as a parental figure to the young Talia.
  • Speaking of Talia, she and her father Ra's Al Ghul are Really 700 Years Old thanks to the Lazarus Pit. Due to the Christopher Nolan's films Doing In the Wizard and removing the Lazarus Pit, Ra's and Talia have realistic ages with Liam Neeson's Ra's being in his late 50s (prior to his death) and Marion Cotillard's Talia being in her 30s.
  • From the same film, the Dick Grayson expy John Blake real name Robin is played by a 31 year old Joseph Gordon-Levitt (older even Chris O'Donnel's Robin) in contrast to comics where he's a teenager or a young adult when he takes over as Batman like Blake does in the film.
  • The reverse applies to Gordon's children seen in The Dark Knight. James Gordon Jr in the comics is around the same age as Dick Grayson, in the film he is 10 years old. His sister, known in the comics as Barbara aka Batgirl is a grown career woman who was retconned into being a teenager, in the film she's a little girl.
  • Catwoman has always had a Vague Age in the comics although its generally considered she’s around the same age as Bruce who mainly in his mid 30s Comic-Book Time, but here she’s played by a 30 year old Anne Hathaway the youngest Catwoman has been. Then again The New 52 decided to have Selina be explicitly younger like the rest of adult heroes, with her being 23 years old, which would make Hathaway (as well as the aforementioned Zoë Kravitz) technically older than the comic version.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Typically, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Barry Allen Flash have been portrayed as being roughly the same age (early-to-mid 20s at the start of their careers), give or take a couple of years, and started their careers around the same time with Cyborg as a high school student (and before The New 52, originally only becoming a superhero years later to boot). In this universe, though, Clark Kent is in his early 30s and has just started his career as Superman, Bruce Wayne is in his mid 40s and has had a 20 year career as Batman, Diana of Themyscira fought first in World War I, Arthur Curry is in his early-to-mid 30s, Victor Stone was in college when he became Cyborg, and if Ezra Miller's age is anything to go by, Barry (like in The Flash (2014)) is quite a bit younger (early 20s).
  • Contrasting Batman, Jeremy Irons would be about the right age for an Alfred early in Batman's career, but next to Affleck he could almost pass for an older brother (in fact Michael Caine, who previously played Alfred, started the role a little older than Irons).
  • The decision to cast Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor has already raised a few eyebrows among comic book fans. Though Luthor is a middle-aged businessman in the comics and in every other adaptation that isn't a prequel, Eisenberg is just thirty years old, and he's primarily known for playing college-aged characters.
  • Wonder Woman (2017) takes place during World War I, as opposed to World War II likes the early comics or even the present day, making Steve Trevor and Etta Candy around 100+ years old if they're still alive, though given the movie ended with him pulling a Heroic Sacrifice before the war ended, Steve wouldn't be, anyway.
  • Wonder Woman herself, similar to the MCU Thor example the filmmakers put her age around 800 to 1000 years old in her first solo movie. In the comics it’s been estimated Diana is well over 3000 years older old since recent comics reveal Hippolyta gave birth to her during The Roman Empire. Zack Snyder's Justice League reveals she’s 5000 years old by the time film takes place, making her ironically older than she is in the comics.
  • Deathstroke is typically a decade or two older than Batman. Joe Manganiello, who was then cast as Slade in Ben Affleck's cancelled solo Batman movie and made an Early-Bird Cameo in Justice League, is four years younger than Affleck.
  • Birds of Prey (2020) sees Rosie Perez, who's in her 50s, as Renee Montoya, a character traditionally around the same age as or younger than Batman. Inversely, Ella Jay Basco, a 12 year old, plays Cassandra Cain, who was 16 in the comics when she debuted.
  • In SHAZAM! (2019), Billy is a 14 year old instead of his normal 9-12. His twin Mary is 17 and is now his foster sister instead of his blood sister.
  • The Suicide Squad:
    • Thanks to a combination of Setting Update and Comic-Book Time, Bloodsport isn't a Phony Veteran of The Vietnam War (long story short, he was a draft dodger, his brother went in his place, and the guilt of his brother losing all his limbs caused him to snap and delude himself into believing he served in the war), as he's played by the at-the-time of filming 48-year old Idris Elba.
    • Savant is easily the biggest example of this, in the comics he’s a young man in his late thirties at most. In the film he’s played by the 66 year old Michael Rooker.
    • Ratcatcher is typically a middle aged man in the comics, in the film Ratcatcher II is played by Daniela Melchior who’s 24. Then again, she’s a Legacy Character from her father who’s played the more accurately aged 46 year old Taika Waititi.
    • Blackguard is clearly an older man in the comics. In the film he’s played by Pete Davidson who was 27 at the time of filming.
    • The Detachable Kid who's an expy of Arm-Fall-Off Boy is a good deal older than his comic version. In the Legion of Super-Heroes Arm-Fall-Off-Boy is a teenager, in the film TDK is played by the 50 year old Nathan Fillion.
• Death Hunt: The real Edgar Millen was a popular young Constable who more closely resembled Constable Alvin Adams, the new rookie in the film. He's instead portrayed as a weary, alcoholic older Sergeant of the RCMP.
• In The Devil's Arithmetic book, Hannah is twelve. In the film she is aged up to around seventeen (she is old enough to drive and get a tattoo). Rivka is ten in the books but is aged up to around fourteen or fifteen.
• The Door into Summer: The original novel involves time travel by time machine and Human Popsicle but revolves around a romance between a 30-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl, with both becoming Human Popsicles at different times until the age gap between them is narrowed to nine years. In the movie, to make it less squicky, the man is de-aged from 30 to 27 and, more importantly, the girl is aged up from 12 to 17. In the end the Human Popsicles make them the same age.
• Dragon Ball Evolution:
  • At the start of the original Dragon Ball series Goku and Chi-Chi are 12 and Bulma and Yamcha are 16 respectively. In the movie both Goku and Chi-Chi are in their late teens being in High School (albeit played by 20-something actors), whilst Bulma and Yamcha are grown adults. Though ironically Goku’s actor Justin Chatwin is older than Emmy Rossum who plays Bulma.
  • Master Roshi is an old man in the source material, in the movie he’s played by Chow Yunfat who was 54 years old at time of filming. What’s even more confusing is that Roshi’s student Gohan, is played by Randall Duk Kim who’s several decades older than Chow Yun-fat. Granted Roshi is immortal in the show, but the movie doesn’t mention it.
• Dune adaptations: None of the actors who've played Paul, Leto II and Ghanima Atreides, or Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen have been under 20. Since Paul and Feyd-Rautha were 15 during Dune itself and Leto II and Ghanima were 8 this is understandable. Generally, Paul and Feyd's ages are not mentioned in the adaptations, which makes this arguably a case of All There in the Manual and Dawson Casting, but for the Syfy version of Children of Dune, Leto and Ghanima's ages were upped to around 18. The 1984 adaptation of Dune also has the four-year-old Alia played by the nine-year-old (at time of release) Alicia Witt.
• Ender's Game had to change the ages of most of the main characters to be more in their early teens. This is probably because one of the major problems with prior attempts to film the book was that a large portion of the cast is made up of children, and in addition to getting a sufficient number of good child actors the ones that were cast would keep growing up before it could enter production. It also probably didn't help that there was quite a bit of violence among the children in the book, at least two of whom were (unknowingly) murdered by Ender.
• Fantastic Four-related films:
  • In the original comics, Johnny Storm was in high school when he took part in the fateful space flight that turned him into the Human Torch. In Fantastic Four (2005), Johnny is already a former astronaut and presumably in his mid-to-late 20s, justifying his presence on the mission in the first place.
  • Fantastic Four (2015) loosely adapts the Ultimate Fantastic Four origin mentioned in the Comic Books section, with Reed, Sue, Johnny, Ben and Doctor Doom all being young adults when they receive their powers.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2017): The live-action film has Ed and Winry around age 20, even older than they were in the final chapters of the manga.
• In the 2015 adaptation of Cornelia Funke's Ghosthunter series, the professional ghost hunter Hedwig, a grey-haired Cool Old Lady, is played by Anke Engelke, who was born in 1965. The character in the movie seems to be intended to look rather younger than the actor than the other way round.
• Jonas, Fiona, Asher, and their classmates were eleven going on twelve in The Giver (the "graduation to adulthood" ceremony is called the "Ceremony of Twelve"), but have been aged up to sixteen for the movie.
• The Green Knight depicts a far older Arthur and Guinevere than usual. Arthur being played by the 56 year old Sean Harris in sickly old man make-up, and Guinevere played by the 51 year old Katy Dickie wearing older make-up as well. While Arthur being portrayed as an older man in Arthurian adaptations isn’t exactly unheard of, e.g Sean Connery in First Knight, Guinevere (to empathise her beauty) is almost never played by any actress over 40. In this version it’s likely intentional done to highlight Arthur and Guinevere as frail grandparent-like figures to Gawain (the protagonist) signifying the fact he will soon inherit Camelot from them when they die.
• The Green Mile:
  • Paul Edgecomb is a few years older in the film than he was in the novel, changed from 40 in the past events and 104 in the present, to 44 in the past and 108 in the present. The film also takes place in 1935 (past) and 1999 (present) instead of 1932 and 1996 like in the book, which is likely why Paul was aged up.
  • "Wild Bill" Wharton was 19 in the novel, but is played by then-31-year-old Sam Rockwell in the film.
  • Percy Wetmore was said to be 21 in the book, but in the film is played by 39-year-old Doug Hutchison (who looked rather young for his age, so this might just be Dawson Casting).
• Harry Potter:
  • Though it seems odd, the film adaptations change the ages accidentally with Lily and James Potter. Looking at the flashback clips, the moving pictures, and the images in the Mirror of Erised, Lily and James appear to have been in their 30s or 40s when they had Harry. It could make sense, since their ages weren't revealed until the seventh book, six years after the first movie had been made. Though the film versions of Harry's parents look quite middle-aged, the book version of Harry's parents were only 20 when they had Harry and 21 when they died. Then again, the whole film timeline seems to be shifted compared to the books - all the dates on the headstones remain the same (including Lily's and James'), but things that didn't exist when the books were set (such as the Millennium Bridge and Oyster card readers) appear, suggesting that Lily and James' generation were all born at the same time as in the books, but just took longer to have kids.
  • Cho Chang is a year older than Harry in the books. A line from Hermione in the fifth film implies she is in the same year as them.
  • Romilda Vane was two years younger than Harry and should have been in her fourth year when Harry was in his sixth year in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Likewise Katie Bell is one year ahead of Harry and in her seventh year but is seen along with Romilda in the sixth years' potions class in the film.
  • Initially averted with Filius Flitwick in the first two films, where he is portrayed as an old white-haired man as he is in the books. However, his appearance changed drastically after Chris Columbus stopped directing the films, suddenly turning into a younger-looking dark-haired man. This is mainly a coincidence-turned-canon: Flitwick was removed from Prizoner of Azkaban, but Warwick Davis was invited back to cameo as the Hogwarts Chorus conductor in a completely different appearance. Likely due to the confusion this caused, the character was retconned shortly after into Flitwick.
  • Gabrielle Delacour is a few years older in the movies than she is in the books since she’s old enough to go to school at Beauxbatons.
• In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is a relatively young man who appears prematurely aged because of illness. In Heart of Darkness (1958), he is played by 70-year-old Boris Karloff and is written as having an adult daughter.
• The Hunger Games:
  • Haymitch Abernathy is 40 years old in the books, but played by Woody Harrelson, who is a decade older.
  • Cinna, described as a young man in the books, is played by a much older Lenny Kravitz.
  • In an instance of inverted Dawson Casting, the character of Clove, heavily implied to be 18 in the books, is stated to be 15 in the film, as she is played by then-14-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman.
  • A retroactive example with Tigris. The original book trilogy never specifies her age, and when she appears in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, she is portrayed by the middle-aged Eugenie Bondurant. Then The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out, revealing that Tigris is President Snow's older cousin, making her over eighty by the time Katniss meets her. However, you can chalk it up to Tigris' facial modifications hiding her actual age relatively well.
• I Shot Jesse James is an interesting case, as it age lifts real-life people. Edward O’Kelley (known as John Kelley in this film) was around 25 years old in 1882 and 35 years old in 1892. Here, he’s played by the 49 year-old Preston Foster in both time periods and treated as significantly older than Robert Ford (who was only five years younger than O'Kelley in real life). This is even more noticeable for Soapy. The real Soapy Smith was in his twenties and thirties during this film’s timeframe. Here, he’s portrayed by Victor Kilian, who was 58 at the time and is treated as an old man.
• Inspector Gadget (1999):
  • Penny was around ten years old in the original cartoon. In both this film and the Broad Strokes sequel, she's a teenager. This age lift would be carried over in most subsequent Gadget adaptations.
  • While Dr. Claw was unseen in the original cartoon, his action figure's white hair suggested that he was at least middle-aged. Here, he seems to be a relatively young man (even though Rupert Everett was 40 at the time). The sequel depicts Claw as older, even though Tony Martin is only six years older than Everett.
• Interview with the Vampire:
  • In the book, Claudia has the physical appearance of a five-year-old. In the movie, Claudia is played by Kirsten Dunst, who was twelve upon the movie's release. Aside from narrowing down the Squick factor, this avoids the practical impossibility of a five-year-old actress playing a believable adult character.
  • In the same film, Armand, a cherubic seventeen-year-old in the book, is aged up to his mid thirties and played by Antonio Banderas, apparently to avoid the Squick inherent in having two of the main character's three pseudo-love-interests be underage.
• Jack in Into the Woods is usually portrayed by an actor in his late teens, and in the end when his mother dies, and he left to wonder who will take care of him, the Baker tells him he's old enough to start taking care of himself, but in the movie, Jack appears to have not hit puberty yet, making him closer to the age he's usually depicted in Jack and the Beanstalk.
• Intruder in the Dust:
  • Mrs. Habersham is seventy in the book and eighty in the film.
  • The Gowrie twins are about thirty in the book (their younger brother Vinson is twenty-eight), but are younger than Vinson in the film, where Nub Gowrie says that his wife suffered Death by Childbirth when the twins were born and that this happened twenty-five years ago.
• The Iron Claw depicts Kevin Von Erich's older son Ross as having been born in 1984, with his younger son Marshall presumably being born later in that decade. The real Ross and Marshall were respectively born in 1988 and 1992.
• James Bond:
  • One of the biggest criticisms of the movie A View to a Kill was that Roger Moore was still playing Bond at age 57 (he was 45 he was first cast as Bond in Live and Let Die). Sean Connery himself said "Bond should be played by an actor 35, 33 years old. I'm too old. Roger's too old, too!" Even when he was first cast, Moore violated the canon of Ian Fleming's novels, which established that Bond faced mandatory retirement at age 45 (meaning Pierce Brosnan was technically too old for the role for most of his time as Bond, and ditto with Daniel Craig for Spectre and No Time to Die).
  • Turned on its head in Skyfall where one of the main themes of the movie is how Bond (played by the 44-year-old Daniel Craig) is getting too old to keep working in the field.
  • Moneypenny was recast with a much younger actress in The Living Daylights from Lois Maxwell (born 1927) to Caroline Bliss (born 1961).
• Jem and the Holograms (2015): In the cartoon all of the women are adults, though Kimber is still in her teens (either eighteen or nineteen). In the film they are very noticeably aged down into high schoolers and are explicitly referred to as under eighteen.
• Joker (2019):
  • Much like Batman (1989) and its version of The Joker, Jack Napier, this film sees its version of Batman's future archenemesis, Arthur Fleck, already an adult when Bruce is a kid.
  • Thomas Wayne is around his 60s, whereas he's traditionally at least a decade or two younger when Bruce is a kid.
• The Karate Kid (2010) remake ages the main characters down from 17-18 year-olds to preteens.
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang had Robert Downey Jr. (born 1965) and Michelle Monaghan (born 1976) play characters who had known each other as kids, with his character having a crush on hers. Robert Downey Jr. is a handsome man but he looks his age so the apparent age gap was Handwaved by showing he had had a hard life as a petty thief in the years since and also have Monaghan play slightly older than her real-life age.
• Land of Oz:
  • Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is around seven or eight years old in the book. Judy Garland was sixteen when she played her in The Wizard of Oz (Barry Norman's book The Hollywood Greats and other sources says Dorothy was meant to be twelve in the film).
  • Return to Oz averts this by having Dorothy at eight, which is much closer to the books.
  • Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is under ten and in The Wiz musical she is a teenager. In The Wiz's movie, Dorothy is in her twenties and is a school teacher, played by Diana Ross, who was thirty-four at the time.
  • In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is so old and evil that all the blood has dried up in her veins. In the MGM film she is aged down to be considerably more younger. While not young, she's certainly not a senior. Most adaptations use this interpretation.
• In the film version of Logan's Run, the mandatory death age was increased to 30 (compared to the book's 21) for this reason. The book's notion that there's no age of sexual consent: as soon as a citizen leaves the creche, anything goes probably doesn't help.
• This probably has to do more with legal compliance than artistic reason, but no matter what actress is playing her, the character of Lolita always starts the movie at age 14 or 15 rather than 12, which she is at the beginning of the book.
• Madame Web (2024):
  • Cassandra Webb and Ezekiel Sims are far younger than in the comics, with their actors being in their early thirties and forties respectively. In the comics Cassandra was an old woman while Ezekiel was in his fifties or sixties. Justified as the story is set before Peter Parker is born and Peter doesn't meet either of them until he's an adult. On top of this, Ezekiel is implied to be Older Than They Look during the bulk of the film, as the timeline indicates he should be in his fifties or sixties in 2003, since he is shown to be an adult in 1973.
  • Also applies to Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon after Peter Parker is born, who is typically around the same age as Julia and at least a decade older than Mattie and Anya, while here they are all teenagers when Peter is born.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In the original 1940s Captain America comics, Bucky Barnes was Cap's Kid Sidekick, and like the Robin example above, was very clearly intended to be a preteen. While modern retcons eventually established that the "Kid Sidekick" thing was a cover, to hide the fact that Bucky was a very young-looking teenager (15 in the beginning and a legal adult at 18 by the time of his "death", something the army would often look the other way about in those days) who doubled as a wetworks operative, the filmmakers behind Captain America: The First Avenger decided to give him an additional bump up to his mid-to-late 20s in addition to making him and Steve childhood friends, significantly altering the dynamic between them from mentor/student to peers. The second film gives Bucky's year of birth as 1916 or 1917 (the props don't agree), which actually makes him older than Cap, whose birth year is given as 1918 in the script. (And yet Sebastian Stan is actually a year younger than Chris Evans...)
  • A character named Jack McGee appeared as a college student in The Incredible Hulk (2008). He's based on the character from the same name from The Incredible Hulk (1977), who was around the same age as Bruce.
  • In Iron Man 2, Justin Hammer is depicted as a middle-aged man and played by Sam Rockwell. This is in sharp contrast to the comics, where Hammer is an old man with an adult granddaughter.
  • Iron Man himself. 2016’s International Iron Man reveals Tony’s age to be 35 (even though he’s often drawn looking older) and putting aside Comic-Book Time, that would mean Tony became Iron Man in his mid to late 20s at most. In Iron Man, he's played by Robert Downey Jr. who was 43 at the time and well into his 50s by Avengers: Endgame. War Machine is also a young man in the comics but played by Don Cheadle who was 47 by the time Iron Man 2, older even than RDJ’s Tony Stark.
  • Downplayed in Avengers: Age of Ultron with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. In the comics, it is Wanda who is the older twin whereas in the movie, Pietro is stated to be the older twin.
  • Ant-Man has two major cases. In the comics, Hank Pym is roughly the same age as his contemporary heroes like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, but in the film, he's portrayed by 70-year-old Michael Douglas. This makes the character a veteran superhero who was actually active decades before people like Iron Man and the Avengers showed up on the scene, in contrast to the comics where he was a founding Avenger. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Darren Cross, who is a middle-aged businessman with an adult son in the comics, but in the film is played by 38-year-old Corey Stoll.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp extends this to Bill Foster, who is played by 56-year-old Laurence Fishburne despite being a much younger man in the comics, and Janet van Dyne, who is played by 60-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer.
  • The MCU in general when it comes to Nick Fury and Black Widow. In the comics, both of them were around during World War II, but are Older Than They Look thanks to some Applied Phlebotinum. The movies indicate they're roughly the same age as their actors, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier explicitly giving Black Widow's birth year as 1984.
  • Avengers: Infinity War reveals Thor’s age of 1500. Extremely old by human standards but a mere babe compared to the comics. Fans have estimated Thor to be between one thousand and one million years old since he fought alongside the Vikings when he was younger in the 9th century AD.
  • Spider-Man's alter ego Peter Parker and Jessica Jones were in high school together in the comics, with Jessica having a crush on Peter. During his debut in Captain America: Civil War, Peter is still a 14/15-year-old high schooler, while Jessica Jones (2015) has Jessica much older (the actresses for Jessica and her classmate-turned-adoptive sister Trish Walker are in their 30s). This is at least partially because the Jessica Jones series was written and conceived way before Marvel and Sony had worked out a deal to get Spider-Man into the MCU, meaning at the time, there was no real reason to make sure their ages lined up.
    • On the subject of Spider-Man, Aunt May has steadily become younger in the movies to make her more believable as someone around Peter's parents' age; after being cast with 74-year-old Rosemary Harris in the Spider-Man Trilogy, then 65-year-old Sally Field in The Amazing Spider-Man, and 51-year-old Marisa Tomei in the MCU. Befittingly, she's a Clueless Dude Magnet who's hit on by everyone from Iron Man to the Thai restaurant waiter. In a funny addendum, Tomei didn't know how old her character's comic book counterpart was until after debuting the role in Captain America: Civil War — after the initial shock, she actually negotiated with Marvel to make her somewhat closer to text, which is probably why she next appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming wearing slightly out-of-fashion glasses◊.
    • Betty Brant and Ned Leeds are grown adults in the comics, both being a little older than Peter and out of high school. In the films, Betty and Ned are the same age as Peter, MJ, Liz and Flash and attend the same high school. In Ned’s case, this is likely due to combining his role with Harry Osborn as Peter’s best friend as well as Ganke Lee from Ultimate Spider-Man.
    • Spidey himself, while Truer to the Text being portrayed as a young teenager when he got his powers, is In-Universe actually younger than he was when he officially joined the Avengers in the comics, being a naive teenage recruit rather than a sarcastic on-and-off-again grown-up teammate.
  • Doctor Strange does this to a few characters. The titular sorcerer who already looks middle aged in the comics is actually much older than he looks, being born in 1930 and, thanks to his use of magic, has managed to stay looking like he usually does to the modern age. In the MCU, Strange only becomes a sorcerer in 2016 so his age in all likelihood is the same as Benedict Cumberbatch's, being in his early to mid 40s. There’s also Karl Mordo and the Ancient One, the former being born around the end of WWI and looking middle-aged like Strange and the latter (given the name) being a millennia old and looking a wizened old man. In the film Mordo is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor^note Who was 38-39 at the time of filming and the Ancient One is played by Tilda Swinton^note Who was 55 at the time of filming although in her case she is tapping into the Dark Dimension to stay looking young.
  • In the original Guardians of the Galaxy comics, Yondu is a hero in his prime, but in addition to being pirate, the movie version portrays him as a grumpy old man. The sequel shows this isn't unique to Yondu, either, as Starhawk, Lady Starhawk and Charlie-27 are also much older than their comic counterparts.^note If we're being technical, about a thousand years older than their comics counterparts, whose comic was set in the 31st century
  • Steve Rogers' year of birth in the comics is usually circa 1922, Depending on the Writer, making him about 20 years old at the start of WWII and 23 by the time he's frozen. The movies push it back to 1918, so that he's about 24 at the start of the film and 26 or 27 by the end (slightly younger than Chris Evans, who was 29 shooting the first movie).
  • In Black Panther, T'Challa and Nakia are roughly the same age, and are childhood friends and former lovers. This is in sharp contrast to the comics, where Nakia was only a teenager and had an unrequited crush on T'Challa. Okoye was also a teenager in the comics, but is a grown woman in the film. In fact, her actress, Danai Gurira, is only about two years younger than Chadwick Boseman.
  • Captain Marvel:
    • This overlaps with Adaptational Wimp for Monica Rambeau. Monica is an adult and established superhero in the comics, but the film presents her as an adorably precocious eleven-year-old. It's worth noting that the film is a Period Piece set in 1995, and at least 24 years go by between Captain Marvel and the next theatrically-released MCU movie, during which time it can be presumed she grew up. An adult Monica later appears in WandaVision, which is set in the present.
    • Carol Danvers herself falls under this, as this version of the character was active in 1995, a full 13 years before most of the other heroes in the MCU (save for Captain America and the original Ant-Man and Wasp) showed up. Thanks to her powers, she doesn't look it, though.
    • Captain Mar-Vell is played by Annette Bening, who was around 60-61 during the filming of his first appearance. This is far older than Mar-Vell was usually depicted in the comics, with the character having been Killed Off for Real well before he could reach middle age.
  • Black Widow (2021):
    • Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian being Natasha’s ex-husband is close in physical age (putting aside the Older Than They Look Applied Phlebotinum) to her in the comics. In the film, however, Alexei is old enough to be her surrogate dad.
    • Melina Vostokova aka Iron Maiden is much younger than Natasha in the comics and enviously lives in the shadow of Nat’s legacy. In the film, it’s quite different as Melina is older, being MCU Natasha’s surrogate mother and was considered The Ace Black Widow before Nat was even indoctrinated. It’s more than likely the filmmakers combined Melina with Natasha from the comics, right down to Alexei being her former husband and lover.
    • Yelena Belova, like with Melina, is several decades younger than Natasha in the comics, being essentially a Replacement Flat Character. In the film, she’s only 5 years younger as her little sister.
    • Taskmaster in the comics is typically a grown man, old enough to have a wife and daughter. In the film, she’s played by Olga Kurylenko, who was just 41 at the time but In-Universe is much younger than Natasha, who’s in her thirties.
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:
    • Per the most recent retellings of his origin in the comics, the unnamed criminal who would become the Mandarin discovered his ten Rings of Power as a young man during the early days of Communist China (with Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin explicitly claiming he found them in 1953), which would make him elderly, but not excessively so. In the movie, Xu Wenwu found the rings thousands of years ago, and their power kept him unnaturally young throughout the ensuing millennia.
    • In the comics, Fah Lo Suee was Shang-Chi's older sister, and was already an adult when he was a child. In the film, Xialing is slightly younger than him. Ironically, in Real Life, Xialing's actress, Meng'er Zhang, is two years older than Shang-Chi's actor, Simu Liu.
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    • America Chavez is only fourteen in the film. The comic version of Chavez was originally stated to be fifteen when she first appeared, but was later mostly depicted as being in her late teens or early twenties.
    • The movie also has a interesting case of this concerning Clea who appears in a post credits scene. In the comics she looks a woman in her early twenties, much younger than her husband Strange to the point of it seeming like a May–December Romance, which is ironic since being from the Dark Dimension Clea is actually thousands of years older than Stephen. In the film she’s played by Charlize Theron who was 46 at the time, only a year older than Benedict Cumberbatch, but she can’t be mistaken as younger than him like in the comics.
  • In the comics Elsa Bloodstone is around 18 when she first started out and thanks to Comic-Book Time is only in her 20s to early 30s at most. In Werewolf By Night she’s played by the 40 year old Laura Donnelly. Similarly Jack Russell is a young man in the comics, but played by a 43 year old Gael García Bernal here.
  • In the comics, Namor was born in the early 1920s and fought for the Allies during World War 2. In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Namor is significantly older than that, having instead been born in the 1500s.
• Mary Poppins never reveals her age but is portrayed as an elderly woman in the books. In Mary Poppins (1964) she is played by the 29-year-old Julie Andrews.
• Mermaids (1990): Charlotte Flax is 14 in the novel, but 15 in the film. Her love interest, Joe Poretti, is 29 in the novel, but 26 in the film.
• The Monsterverse sees this as Godzilla (2014) paints Godzilla as an older dinosaur than his Toho counterparts and The Stinger for Kong: Skull Island paints Rodan and King Ghidorah as having been around as long as Godzilla (it also features Mothra, but Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) sees Mothra retain her habit of dying and reproducing). Conversely, King Kong himself is a teenager in the 1970s.
• While their video game counterparts were adults in the present day, the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot presents Scorpion and Sub-Zero as having been around since the 17th century, making them far older.
• In Mortal Engines, Tom, Hester, Katherine and Bevis were all in their mid-teens. The film ages them up a few years, so they're in their twenties.
• The musical Nine (Musical) is about a filmmaker experiencing a mid-life crisis as he turns forty. For the film version, his age was upped to fifty to match Daniel Day-Lewis (52 in 2009, when the film was released).
• In the book One Fat Summer, Bobby Marks and Jodie Williams are both 14, Willie Rumson and his gang are hovering at 17-18, Pete Marino is in his early 20s, and Dr. Kahn's age is vague. Cue the movie adaptation, "Measure of a Man," and Bobby and Jodie are now 16, Rumson is old enough to have served a tour in Vietnam AND been Pete's bully, and Dr. Kahn is clearly a holocaust survivor.
• Inverted in the 2004 adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook. Allie and Noah have a teenage summer romance, and Allie mentions when they reunite as adults that she waited for him for seven years, putting them both in their mid-20's. In the novel, it's been twice as long since they've seen each other and they're both around 30. A small change, but one that shifts the tone of their reunion and reconciliation.
• Most of the main cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians was aged up from their preteens. Most notorious in Annabeth's case - sure, they aged her up from twelve to sixteen, but that didn't stop Alexandria Daddario from being in her early twenties.
• The Phantom of the Opera (2004):
  • Christine Daaé seems to be a young woman (Emmy Rossum was 18 when she played her) but it’s revealed In-Universe she’s 16 as her gravestone says she was born in 1854, and the beginning of the movie shows the setting as 1870 which does unfortunately make her older suitors Raoul and the Phantom’s courtship of her, pretty icky (Values Dissonance notwithstanding). This is actually Older Than They Think as the Lofficier translation of Gaston Leorux’s novel says Christine is 15 years old, but this is actually a mistranslation. Given Christine met Raoul when they were both children and grew up together until they were teenagers, before Raoul left, she’s likely 20 years old in the book same as him.
  • The Phantom himself is subject to this along with Adaptational Attractiveness to go along with the film’s Hotter and Sexier tone. While we don’t know the Phantom’s age in the book, it’s clear he’s much older than Christine (Michael Crawford was in his 40s when he debuted the role) and an important plot point is that she sees him as a father figure. In the film he’s played by Gerard Butler who was 35 at time of filming.
  • Little Meg is 15 in the book. In the film she’s played by Jennifer Ellison, who was 21 when she played her, ironically making her three years older than Rossum’s Christine.
  • Meg’s mother Madame Giry is an old woman in the book, and usually played by older actresses in the musical. In the film she’s played by 46 year old Miranda Richardson.
• Roberto Benigni playing the title role in Pinocchio (2002), at the age of 50.
• In the Queen of the Damned film, the character of David Talbot, the Superior General of the Talamasca Caste, a paranormal research society, is played by the (then) 42-year-old Paul McGann. However, in the novel, he is in his 80s and is nearing the end of his long and full life. Ditto for Jessie Reeves, played by Marguerite Moreau (24 at the time), who is supposed to be 35 in the novel, although this can also fit under Hollywood Old.
• Red, White & Royal Blue: In the novel, Beatrice was the middle child between Phillip and Henry, but in the film, she's the youngest royal sibling. Alex is a senior in college in the book, but in the film he is in law school, so he appears to have been aged up by at least a year.
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City:
  • In Resident Evil 2, the female lead Claire Redfield is but 19 years old and still in college. In Welcome To Raccoon City, Claire is played by Kaya Scodelario who’s 29 at the time of filming. Likewise Leon Kennedy the rookie hero cop is a little older than Claire at 21, in the film is played by Avan Jogia who is the same age as her at 29. Ironically in the 1998 live action trailer for RE2 directed by George Romero, Leon was actually much younger than Claire being portrayed by the late Brad Renfro who was 15 at the time, while Adrienne Frantz who played Claire was 20.
  • In Resident Evil 1 Chris Redfield was 25 and Jill Valentine was 23, in the film Chris is played by Robbie Amell who is 33 and Jill is played by Hannah John-Kamen who’s 32. The opposite is at play for Wesker who is 38 in RE1 and possibly even older than that, in the film he played by Tom Hopper who’s only 36.
• In The BBC film versions of The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North, actor Matt Smith plays street kid Jim, who is 11 in the first book and 16 in the second, as a man in his late teens/early twenties. Which could cause problems if they ever get around to filming the fourth book, The Tin Princess.
• Scrappy-Doo was a young puppy in the Scooby-Doo cartoons. In the 2002 live-action film he's an adult dog whose small size is due to a gland disorder.
• Ang Lee's 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is full of this trope. Colonel Brandon, who was supposed to be 35 or 36, was played by 49-year-old Alan Rickman. The 19-year-old Elinor Dashwood was played by 35-year-old Emma Thompson, and 17-year-old Marianne Dashwood was played by 20-year-old Kate Winslet. However, the movie implies that the Dashwood sisters are in their late and early 20s, respectively and that Colonel Brandon is an older world-weary gent that we would associate with someone nearing 50. Lee and (scriptwriter) Emma Thompson made a conscious decision to age Elinor up to at least her mid-twenties, because they didn't think the audience would accept a 19-year-old worrying about being left on the shelf.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
  • In the games, Sonic is 15. According to director Jeff Fowler, this film’s version of Sonic is either 13 or 14.
  • In the games, Pachacamac lived 4000 years before Sonic was born. Here, he's alive when Sonic was a toddler.
• In State of the Union, Katherine "Kay" Thorndyke is a divorcée "in her late thirties," according to the play script. The film version cast Angela Lansbury in her early twenties and added a new opening scene to establish Miss Thorndyke as a young heiress.
• In Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Rose is a teenager rather than a grown woman.
• In all the Superman movies, Superman's alien father Jor-El is played by middle-aged actors (Marlon Brando, Russell Crowe) with graying or silver hair. In the Superman comics, Jor-El was a young man who looked exactly like Superman when Krypton blew up (after all, Kal-El was a baby when his father died).
• That Darn Cat!: In the book, Ingrid is sixteen, and Patti is a college graduate. In the film, Patti is in high school, and Ingrid is an adult.
• In the book of Tuck Everlasting, Winnie is eleven. To both fit the Dawson Casting of Alexis Bledel and lessen the weirdness of her romance with forever 17-year-old Tuck, she is aged up to 15 in the movie.
• Twilight Zone: The Movie: In "It's a Good Life", Anthony is about ten or eleven years old. He is three years old in the It's a Good Life short story and six in the original episode.
• Victor Frankenstein: While this movie's Victor is a medical student, he's older than his book counterpart—the latter is in his 20s, but James McAvoy was 34-35 years old during principal photography. While the actor is Older Than They Look when clean-shaven, he always grows a beard for roles which require him to diminish his boyish appearance, so it indicates that his character is meant to be in his early 30s.
• Watchmen has Silk Spectre II and the Comedian. In the original comic, the Comedian was 16 at the time of WWII while Silk Spectre was 19. In the film, they were aged up to their 20s since neither of the actors (Carla Gugino as Sally/Silk Spectre I and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian) could pass for teens.
• In the film version of The Wiz, Dorothy is a 24-year-old woman, played by 34-year-old Diana Ross. This is a change from the stage musical, where, as in The Wizard of Oz, she's a young girl usually played by a teenage actress.
• In every film and television version of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Cathy are played by the adult actors during the scene where they eavesdrop on the Lintons, making giggling comments. In the novel they are children at this time, explaining their childish behavior. Catherine is only 19 when she dies. Heathcliff was 20, and he was 16 when he ran away. No adaptation has even gotten close to the correct ages.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • In the comics, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast, and Angel are roughly the same age, being the "First Class" with Beast as the eldest. In the movies, Iceman and Angel are quite a bit younger than Cyclops and Jean, and Beast is older than all of them, having a couple of decades on Scott and Jean.
  • Rogue in the comics is close in age to Jean and Storm being a grown woman, who’s explicitly older than Jubilee, but in the first three movies she’s a teenager the same as Iceman. This is likely due to combining her character and role with Kitty Pryde and Jubilee who incidentally appear in later films.
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine presents Bolt as a contemporary of Agent Zero, as opposed to his teenage protégé. The same movie presents Gambit as a grown man in The '80s, in the comics Gambit is around the same age as the aforementioned Rogue his Love Interest. In the film Gambit is several decades older than Rogue and the other X-Men (besides Wolverine), and he never meets or joins them. Heather Hudson also appears in the movie as an elderly woman, in contrast to her comics counterpart, who seems to be in her 30s or early 40s at the absolute oldest.
  • In addition to Beast, by deciding to avoid Comic-Book Time with X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse (even if it seems the characters aged just 5 years during a period that in-universe is stated to be 21), several characters are older than the main cast in the original trilogy. There's Havok, who's Cyclops' younger brother in the comics; Darwin, who's the same age as Havok and hence younger than the First Class of the comics; Quicksilver, Riptide and Emma Frost, who are the same age as the present day characters in the comics; Shaw, who isn't as long-lived as his movie counterpart; and Angel Salvadore, who's in fact younger than most of the characters in the original trilogy. The future of DoFP also does this to Bishop as his counterpart in the comics in a time traveler who has yet to be born in the present, yet his movie self is teammates with Blink, Sunspot, and Warpath.
  • Going the other way, Iceman and Pyro are closer in age to Cyclops and Jean in the comics, yet their movie counterparts are younger, and Banshee was an adult when he joined the X-Men in the comics. Mystique is a couple of years younger than Professor Xavier in the movies whereas her comics counterpart is roughly the same age as Wolverine — and was frequently implied and later confirmed in Immortal X-Men to have been Sherlock Holmes.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse:
    • It retcons away the X-Men: The Last Stand versions of Angel and Psylocke, making them around the same age as Cyclops, Jean, and Storm as in the comics. It also retcons Jubilee into their classmate, as opposed to being a generation younger than them.
    • Nina (the Adaptation Name Change for Anya), who in the comics was Magneto's eldest child, but in the movie-verse, Quicksilver is. Nina is at least 18 years younger than Peter Maximoff.
    • Apocalypse himself is depicted as having been active for years by 3600 BCE—which is also around the same time he was born in the comics.
  • Logan:
    • Averted with X-23 as she was a Canon Immigrant created for X-Men: Evolution, as she's truer to her original age as a little kid, as opposed to being a teenager like later incarnations.
    • Rictor went from a late teenager/adult to a little kid.
    • Zander Rice is only in his 30s in the comics, but here, he's in his 60s.
  • In Deadpool 2, Yukio is a teenager who appears to be roughly the same age as her girlfriend, Negasonic Teenage Warhead. In the comics, Yukio is an adult and seemingly around the same age as Storm.

---