>James Cameron was the first director approached for the project back when Carolco Pictures held the rights, but passed it off to his then-wife Kathryn Bigelow to focus on his Spider-Man movie. Both projects were cancelled when Carolco went bankrupt and Fox picked up the rights.>Richard Donner, Tim Burton, Danny Boyle, David Fincher, Brett Ratner, Joel Schumacher, Robert Rodriguez, Paul W.S. Anderson, John McTiernan, Irvin Kershner and Stephen Hopkins were considered to direct before Bryan Singer was hired due to his strong handling of an ensemble cast in The Usual Suspects.>Singer initially turned down the project because, and was only sold on it after producers compared the ideological conflict between Professor Xavier and Magneto to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.>Singer didn’t want the cast to read the comics and forbid them on set, but producer Kevin Feige would often smuggle them in, and the cast passed them around behind Singer’s back.>Several celebrities approached Fox wanting to play their favorite characters in the film: Michael Jackson wanted to play Professor Xavier (and even presented his video clip for “Ghosts” as proof he could play an old white man), Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey both wanted to play Storm, and Shaquille O’Neal wanted to play Bishop.
>Russell Crowe was the first choice for Wolverine, but turned it down because he didn’t want to be typecast as “wolf characters” following Gladiator (Maximus had a wolf motif in the original cut which wound up downplayed in the final version). Producers also said that he asked for too much money and refused to sport Wolverine’s classic hairstyle, demanding a buzzcut instead.>Viggo Mortensen was approached for Wolverine, but his son convinced him to turn it down because the script was not faithful to the comics.>Glenn Danzig was considered for Wolverine, but he refused to screen-test for the role rather than receive a direct offer.>Keanu Reeves, Edward Norton, Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Sinise were also considered for Wolverine,>Dougray Scott was originally cast as Wolverine, but was forced to drop out after getting injured on the set of Mission: Impossible 2. Production was already underway when it happened, and Fox had to rush to find a replacement.>Hugh Jackman was asked to screen-test for Wolverine at Russell Crowe’s recommendation and won the role, but producers were still unsure about him early on due to him being a complete unknown at the time.>Like Crowe, Jackman mistook Wolverine to be based on wolves and watched several nature documentaries in order to learn how to properly emulate wolf mannerisms, and almost got fired when he started acting like a wolf on set.
>Mariah Carey as storm
>Patrick Stewart was the first choice for Professor Xavier, but was reluctant because he didn’t want to spend the entire movie in a wheelchair. He only made up his mind when producers approached Terence Stamp for the role.>Stamp, Christopher Lee and Jeremy Irons were considered for Magneto before Ian McKellen was cast, having previously worked with Singer in Apt Pupil.>Vince Vaughn and Thomas Jane turned down Cyclops. Jim Caviezel was originally cast, but he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Frequency. Eric Mabius and D.B. Sweeney were considered before James Marsden was cast.>Charlize Theron and Julianne Moore turned down Jean Grey. Maria Bello, Peta Wilson and Lucy Lawless were considered before Famke Janssen was cast.>Angela Basset turned down Storm. Jada Pinkett-Smith and Sanaa Lathan were considered before Halle Berry was cast.>Natalie Portman, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Rachel Leigh Cook turned down Rogue. Christina Ricci and Katherine Isabelle were considered before Anna Paquin was cast.>Jeri Ryan screen-tested for Mystique.>Triple H screen-tested for Sabretooth.>The first actor to sign on for the project was actually Bruce Davison, who played Senator Robert Kelly.
>Over 30 different scripts were written for the movie. The final version was written by Ed Solomon and revised by Christopher McQuarrie, Joss Whedon, Tom DeSanto and David Hayter, who ended up receiving sole credit for the script.>Most drafts featured the X-Men rescuing Wolverine and a young female mutant from Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants. Early version featured Kitty Pryde or Jubilee, before Singer decided to use Rogue because her powers were the best allegory for the alienation of being a mutant.>Magneto was originally targeting Wolverine because Adamantium was necessary to complete his mutation machine, but this was later changed to Magneto targeting Rogue in order to sacrifice her to activate the machine to both increase Rogue’s plot importance and give Wolverine a stronger character arc.>Early drafts featured Beast as a member of the X-Men, and Pyro and Blob as members of the Brotherhood, but they were all considered too expensive. Beast’s role as the team doctor was given to Jean Grey, and Pyro was given a small cameo as one of the X-students.>Joss Whedon’s revisions were all discarded for being too quippy, with only two exchanges making it to the final movie (“It’s me”/”prove it”/”You’re a dick”/”Okay” and “You know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?”) Whedon later explained his draft had a running gag of Toad listing off Toad feats, always starting with “you know what happens to a toad when…?” and that keeping the line after cutting its setup made no sense.
>>143308429>Michael Jackson wanted to play Professor Xavier>Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey both wanted to play StormSoundtrack would have slapped.
>Singer behaved erratically on set, arriving late, throwing tantrums and blatantly casting young men as background extras in exchange for sexual favors – including the actor who originally played Pyro, Alex Burton, who later sued Singer and his production partner Marc Collins-Rector. Feige and DeSanto were assigned by the studio to keep him in check.>Despite filming having been delayed for three months due to Dougray Scott’s injury and the search for a new Wolverine, Fox moved up the release date from Christmas 2000 to July to fill the void left by Minority Report, which had been delayed, meaning the movie had to be delivered six months early, resulting in an extremely rushed production.>Feige and DeSanto pushed for the X-Men to wear blue-and-yellow costumes like in the comics, but were overruled by Singer and Fox, who opted for black leather so the movie would be taken seriously following the box office flop of more colorful superhero movies such as Batman & Robin.>Hugh Jackman’s physique fluctuates between shots because he only started a heavy workout routine upon being cast in the movie.>The scene where Cyclops smiles at a little boy in the train station was ad-libbed because the kid they got for the scene was a Cyclops fan and couldn't stop smiling.>Rebecca Romijn accidentally knocked out Bruce Davison with a kick to the face and threw up on Jackman while filming their fight scene.>Ray Park ad-libbed Toad’s cheeky dance while fighting Jean Grey.>Tyler Mane was blinded for two days due to wearing his Sabretooth contacts for too long.>Producers assumed Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen knew how to play chess and only discovered they needed an instructor when it came the day to shoot their scenes.
>Bryan Singer began reading the comics after the first movie’s success, and chose “God Loves, Man Kills” as the basis of the sequel immediately after reading it.>William Stryker was reinvented from a preacher leading an anti-mutant militia to the military scientist responsible for the Weapon X Program to give a connection to the movie’s protagonist Wolverine.>Stryker would originally create the Sentinels and the Legacy Virus. Rewrites replaced the Legacy Virus for Dark Cerebro to give Professor Xavier a bigger role and removed the Sentinels at the behest of Fox President Tom Rothman, who claimed audiences wouldn’t take the movie seriously if it featured giant robots.>Stryker's brainwashed mutant enforcers were originally Sabretooth, Toad and Archangel, who would have razor-sharp Adamantium wings. Wolverine would fight Sabretooth, Nightcrawler and Storm would fight Toad, and Cyclops and Jean Grey would fight Archangel, who would ultimately join the X-Men. They were cut due to the budget and the movie having too many characters.>Stryker's assistant Anne Reynolds was originally a human loyal to his cause. When Sabretooth, Toad and Archangel were cut, she was changed into a brainwashed Deathstrike to feature at least one mutant villain for Wolverine to fight.>Dark Cerebro would originally cause mutants across the globe to lose control of their powers, leading to cameos of human-looking Hank McCoy transforming into Beast in the middle of a televised debate, Gambit blowing up a deck of cards during a poker game, and Marrow’s bone protrusions emerging while she is school. This was cut due to budget, and rewrites changed it to Dark Cerebro giving mutants deadly migraines instead.
>Cyclops and Professor X had smaller roles so the X-Men would have to fight without their leaders. Early cuts featured Mastermind tricking Cyclops into believing that he had escape, rescue Xavier and break out of Weapon X, but it was cut for pacing.>Kitty Pryde and Jubilee originally had bigger roles. Kitty would escape alongside Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman and Pyro, while Jubilee would protect the young mutant captured by Stryker from the soldiers at the Weapon X facility.>Early drafts featured a love triangle between Rogue, Iceman and Pyro that was scrapped for being too similar to the Wolverine, Jean Grey and Cyclops love triangle.>Early drafts featured Wolverine training in the Danger Room. It was featured in the movie’s first poster and teaser trailer before being cut due to the budget.>The romance between Storm and Nightcrawler was added after Halle Berry won an Oscar in order to give her a larger role.>The kiss between Wolverine and Jean Grey was added due to the pairing’s popularity with audiences following the first movie.>These movies were working under the basis that Wolverine's claws were surgically grafted onto him rather than him having bone claws that were coated in Adamantium, and you can even see schematics for them in the Weapon X X-rays.>Mystique’s scales and Nightcrawler’s tattoos were added so the characters wouldn’t have “Star Trek-y” flat blue skin.
>Anthony Hopkins was approached for William Stryker before Brian Cox was cast.>Lucy Liu was approached for Deathstrike before Kelly Hu was cast.>Neil Patrick Harris and Ethan Embry tested for Nightcrawler before Alan Cummings was cast. Harris was the early favorite, but lost the role because Cummings was already fluent in German.>Producer Tom DeSanto was once again assigned to keep Singer in check, and even halted production after Singer insisted on shooting a stunt-heavy scene while drunk and got Jackman injured. Singer fired DeSanto for interfering with production, but was forced to reinstate him when the entire cast threatened to quit in solidarity with DeSanto.
>Hugh Jackman had two sets of prop claws – Plastic for stunts, metal for posing. He wore the metal claws for the Weapon X breakout flashback, which he filmed in the nude, and turned around to find the female cast and crew - and James Marsden's mother – ogling him. He tried to cover himself and slashed his tight, requiring several stitches.>Jackman shot kissing scenes with every female cast members for the scene where Mystique attempts to seduce Wolverine. None of them were used in the movie.>James Marsden campaigned for Cyclops to have an fight scene against the guards at Magneto's prison before being captured, and while it was filmed, most of it ended up being cut.>The song in Cyclops' car was supposed to be Cher's "Believe". She felt that the movie was making fun of her and refused to sign off on it, so they switched to N'Sync's "Bye Bye".>Fox auctioned off the custom-made Xavier wheelchair from the first movie and had to rent it out for Patrick Stewart to use in the sequel.
>>143308451>Christopher Lee and Jeremy Irons were considered for MagnetoAU where Lee gets this and Ian McKellen plays Dooku in Star Wars
>Fox had only signed the cast for two movies, and had to renegotiate their contracts for the third movie, leading to significant pay raises for all.>Singer left to direct Superman Returns with the expectation that Fox would wait for him to do X-Men 3. Fox was so furious that they not only moved forward without Singer but set X-Men 3 for release one month before Superman Returns.>Singer’s original pitch for the third movie featured Jean Grey returning as the Phoenix, and Magneto recruiting Xavier’s ex-girlfriend Emma Frost to brainwash her into helping the Brotherhood take over the world, and also featured Gambit as a thief who joins the Brotherhood but later switches sides to the X-Men after falling in love with Rogue. Singer wanted Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost and Channing Tatum as Gambit.>When Singer left, he took the previous films’ writers, composer, cinematographer, production designer and James Marsden with him, and tried to take Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen and Shawn Ashmore to play Jonathan Kent, Superman’s Kryptonian mother Lara and Jimmy Olsen, respectively.>Since the first two movies were praised for its grounded approach, Tom Rothman didn't want X3 to be too fantastical. He was against including the Sentinels as anything but a Danger Room simulation and pushed for the Phoenix to be Jean's evil split personality rather of a cosmic entity, as well as the mutant cure storyline as the main plot since it provided a larger role for Magneto.
>Darren Aronofsky, Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon and Alex Proyas were considered to replace Singer before Matthew Vaughn was hired. Vaughn cast Kelsey Grammer as Beast and Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut, but later dropped out due to creative conflicts with Fox and Brett Ratner stepped in.>James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn and Anna Paquin were not available due to the rushed production and had to be written out - Mystique and Rogue lost their powers and Cyclops got killed. The writers tried to convince Fox not to kill off Cyclops, but execs thought it would be very dramatic and insisted on it.>Juggernaut had a bigger role in Vaughn’s version and was actually Xavier's half-brother. Most of his scenes were cut and he was reduced to comic relief, and has been vocal about how Ratner ripped him off.>Nightcrawler had such a small role that Alan Cummings declined to return and go through the grueling makeup process again for so little screen time. Producers justified his absence by claiming that Beast and Mystique were already in the movie and too many blue-skinned characters would confuse audiences.>Vaughn originally cast Maggie Grace as Kitty Pryde, but she dropped out when Vaughn did. Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau tested before Ellen Page was cast on Ratner's insistence. He then spent the entire production bullying her for being gay after she turned him down.>Vaughn originally cast Mike Vogel as Angel, but dropped out when Vaughn did. Nick Stahl and Ryan Phillipe tested before Ben Foster was cast.>Vaughn originally cast Omahyra Mota as mutant prostitute Stacy-X. Ratner scrapped the character and recast Mota as Magneto's enforcer Arclight.>Ratner originally cast Mei Melançon as mutant gangster Revanche, but Fox changed her into the more recognizable Pyslocke.
>Vaughn’s version had a different plot structure: Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge happened in the second act, and Alcatraz was a mutant prison rather than Worthington Labs headquarters. Magneto would break out its inmates to build his army, and then unleash the Phoenix, who would destroy San Francisco, killing thousands of people. Ratner felt that the bridge lift was too impressive not to be the final setpiece, while Fox objected to Jean committing mass murder.>The final battle would originally happen in Washington, D.C., with the Brotherhood destroying Worthington Labs and then targeting the White House, where X-Men come in to save the day, with Iceman freezing the Potomac river so they could land.>Vaughn’s version featured Wolverine and Storm getting together, and some drafts even included a love triangle between them and Beast, who would be Storm’s ex-boyfriend. Other drafts had Colossus be gay like in the Ultimate comics and have a crush on Wolverine.>Vaughn’s version also featured Rogue going undercover in the Brotherhood. Gambit was still present in some drafts and they would get together while Iceman would up with Kitty Pryde. Rogue would also be in the final battle and take out the Juggernaut, permanently stealing his powers in the process.>Colossus was supposed to have a bigger role that was cut down in rewrites. He would fight the Juggernaut and beat up Magneto. Fox also cheaped out on Colossus and just wrapped Daniel Cudmore in a reflexive foil-esque "armor" makeup instead of CGI-ing it.>Angel was also supposed to have a bigger role and actually join the final battle, wearing Cyclops’s X-suit. He would kill several Brotherhood members by lifting them up in the sky and dropping them to their deaths before Magneto cuts one of his wings off with a piece of debris.
>Deleted scenes include Wolverine fighting Multiple-Man and his copies in the forest, Beast and Kitty breaking into Worthington Labs to steal a sample of the cure for further study, and Kitty and Iceman rescuing Warren Worthington Sr. from the Brotherhood during a car chase.>Anna Paquin hated that Rogue took the cure. They shot an alternative version where she didn't, but test-audiences chose the cure ending. They also went with the version where she holds hands with Iceman over the one where they actually kiss since the producers' daughters felt the kiss made it "too sexual".>An alternative ending features Pyro reforming and rejoining the X-Men, but test-audiences felt he was too evil to get redemption, so he just disappears after being knocked out by Iceman, since there was no time to film a proper death scene.>Mystique would be revealed to still be in cahoots with Magneto in the end, her whole “being cured and selling him out to the government after being ditched” being all part of Magneto's masterplan, but Rebecca Romjin was unavailable to film the scene.>Xavier's death was supposed to be definitive, the stinger where he transferring his mind to his twin brother's braindead body was a last-minute addition because test-audiences didn't like him dying.
>The movie was greenlit during the production of X-Men: The Last Stand, originally as an R-rated spinoff about Wolverine searching for his past. Fox later changed it into the first of a planned series of PG-13 prequel films about famous X-Men characters, which was ultimately scrapped when this movie underperformed.>David Benioff and D.B. Weiss wrote the first draft of the script, in which Wolverine and Sabretooth are not brothers, and Kayla Silverfox is willingly working for William Stryker. In this version, Weapon XI is a series of feral clones of Sabretooth enhanced with Wolverine’s healing factor created by Stryker to hunt and kill mutants, one of which escapes and is later recruited by Magneto.>The original script features only three additional mutants: Beak, a bird-like circus freak who is murdered by Sabretooth; the Blob, a former associate of Sabretooth who fights Wolverine in a supermarket; and Barbarus, a four-armed mobster whom Wolverine tortures for information by cutting off three of his arms. Fox later switched Beak for the more budget-friendly Bolt, turned human side characters John Wraith and Agent Zero into mutants, and changed Weapon XI into a supersoldier with the combined powers of several different mutants.>When Fox retooled the project into the launching point for the prospective X-Men Origins film series, they added Gambit, Deadpool, Cyclops and Storm (who was later cut) to set up their own spinoffs, in addition to cameos from Professor Xavier, Emma Frost, Toad, Banshee, Quicksilver and others.
>Zack Snyder and Len Wiseman were considered to direct before Gavin Hood was hired. He signed on back when the film would be an R-rated thriller, and had a miserable experience due to executive meddling to change it into a PG-13 blockbuster. He nearly quit after taking a two-week leave due to a family emergency and returning to find the Weapon X sets completely rebuilt and repainted, as the originals were deemed “too scary.” He hasn’t directed a big-budget studio movie since.>Gerard Butler was the top choice for Sabretooth, but was unavailable. Hugh Jackman then suggested Liev Schreiber, who was initially in talks to play Stryker, and promised producers he would help Schreiber work out to achieve the necessary physique to play the character. Karl Urban and Aaron Eckhart were also considered.>After Schreiber was cast as Sabretooth, Michael C. Hall was approached for Stryker before Danny Huston was cast.>Michelle Monaghan was originally cast as Silverfox, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and Lynn Collins replaced her.>Chris Hemsworth tested for Gambit before Taylor Kitsch was cast. Kitsch was expected to be the next big Hollywood heartthrob and Fox was eager to lock him down for a franchise.>David Harbour tested for the Blob before Kevin Durand was hired, but was considered too fat for the role.
>Production was delayed due to Hugh Jackman’s commitments with Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, then rushed into production due to looming writer’s strike of 2009. The script was constantly rewritten on set, which also led to tensions between Gavin Hood and the producers. Things got so headed Fox sent veteran director Richard Donner, the husband of longtime X-Men producer Lauren Shuller-Donner, down to the set to guide Hood through the difficult shoot.>The script initially featured Wolverine as a child in the 1950’s, making him around 70 years old in the present day, but Marvel insisted the studio adhere to Wolverine’s canon comics origin where he was born in the 1800s, which they created specifically to prevent Hollywood from coming up with their own version which would then color audience perceptions.>Test-audiences didn’t respond well to Silverfox betraying Logan, so they changed Emma Frost into her sister in reshoots and made it so Silverfox was working with Stryker to save her, and genuinely fell in love with Wolverine in the process. A different version of Emma Frost was later introduced in X-Men: First Class, and this movie’s version was retconned into a girl with the same name, appearance, powers and implied romantic interest in Cyclops as Emma Frost, but who wasn’t ACTUALLY Emma Frost.>Deadpool and Weapon XI were originally separate characters, with Scott Adkins cast as Weapon XI. Producer Tom Rothman decided to capitalize on Deadpool’s popularity by merging the two characters and having the Weapon XI experiment be what drives Deadpool insane. Ryan Reynolds had already been cast and warned producers it was a bad idea, but they ignored. Most of Adkins’s fight scenes were reshot with Reynolds, and Adkins was credited as his stunt double.
>Fox greenlit X-Men: First Class after the X-Men Origins film series was scrapped. Josh Schwartz wrote the first draft of the script, which followed the canon of the original trilogy and featured Professor Xavier recruiting Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Beast to fight the Friends of Humanity in the 1980s.>Bryan Singer was approached to direct, but wasn’t available. Fox then approached Matthew Vaughn, who had previously dropped out of directing X-Men: The Last Stand, and he pitched the idea of a reboot set in the 1960s with young Professor Xavier and Magneto forming the X-Men together, which Fox liked as it would allow them to launch a new film series.>Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller wrote a new script, which incorporated elements of Sheldon Turner’s script for the unproduced X-Men Origins: Magneto film, such as Magneto being a Nazi hunter searching for the mutant scientist who experimented on him in Auschwitz. Vaughn later rewrote the script with longtime collaborator Jane Goldman.>Singer ultimately joined the project as a producer, and persuaded Fox to preserve the canon of the original trilogy, shifting X-Men: First Class back into a prequel despite several inconsistencies between it and the originals, which disappointed Vaughn as it prevented him from using characters such as Wolverine, for which he intended to cast Tom Hardy.
>Andrew Garfield, Eddie Redmayne and Jim Sturgess tested for Xavier before James McAvoy was cast.>Jamie Dornan, Jack Huston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson tested for Magneto before Michael Fassbender was cast.>Amber Heard tested for Mystique before Jennifer Lawrence was cast.>Rosamund Pike tested for Moira McTaggert before Rose Byrne was cast.>Benjamin Walker was originally cast as Beast, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Taylor Lautner was considered before Nicholas Hoult was cast.>Alice Eve was originally cast as Emma Frost, but dropped out due to creative differences. Emily Blunt was considered before January Jones was cast.>Bryan Cranston and Colin Firth were considered for Sebastian Shaw before Kevin Bacon was cast.
>Fox once again rushed the movie into production without a complete script, as they were in danger of losing the rights to Marvel Studios if it didn’t release in summer 2011. The writers credit this with Fox not interfering as much as they did in the past, as there was simply not enough time to second guess things if they wanted the movie done in time.>Producers wanted a love triangle between Xavier, Moira MacTaggert and Magneto to echo the popular Wolverine/Jean Grey/Cyclops love triangle from the original trilogy, but Vaughn insisted that their falling out should be purely ideological.>Sunspot would originally be a member of the Hellfire Club and fight Havok during the final battle, but his powers were considered too expensive.>Oliver Platt’s nameless CIA agent would originally be in league with the Hellfire Club, but this subplot was axed in reshoots, and in order to justify the character’s absence, they had the Hellfire Club kill him during their attack on the CIA compound where the young mutants were housed.>The first cut of the movie didn’t test well and Fox ordered emergency reshoots directed by Singer, which added most of the overt callbacks to the original trilogy, the budding romance between Magneto and Mystique and the Wolverine cameo, among others.
>>143308437>>Like Crowe, Jackman mistook Wolverine to be based on wolves and watched several nature documentaries in order to learn how to properly emulate wolf mannerisms, and almost got fired when he started acting like a wolf on set.I just love how stupid actors can be sometimes kek
>>143308451>but was reluctant because he didn’t want to spend the entire movie in a wheelchair.Kind of odd. I'd figure an old dude like Stewart wouldn't mind having a role where he could sit down.
>>143309831TBF, wolverines are endemic to North America and nobody's heard of them until they've heard of Wolverine.
>>143309841Stewart is a huge dudebro IRL, he just has the voice of a cultured thespian.
>>143308539>Lucy Liu was approached for Deathstrike before Kelly Hu was castThank fucking god. I remember during that era all of Hollywood had a giant boner for that ugly ass bitch and somehow she came to represent Asians in Hollywood for like a fucking decade.
>>143309841He was almost 60(?). If he's kept well enough in good health and shape, he probably wouldn't want to waste it being wheelchair-bound.
>The movie was greenlit as a direct sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine set in the 1980’s. Darren Aronofsky would write and direct, but he dropped out after Fox rejected his script. James Mangold replaced him, and pitched setting the movie in the present day and exploring Wolverine’s life after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.>Aronofsky's R-rated script featured Logan being recruited The Hand to become an enforcer for the Yashida Crime Family in Japan. Logan falls in love with Mariko Yashida, daughter of mobster Shingen Yashida, and must fight for her love. Other characters included Yukio, Logan's bodyguard and lover; Zen, Logan's master in the Hand; Elvis, an American mobster and Shingen's rival; Harada, Shingen's illegitimate son who craves for his father's approval; and Viper, an assassin and Harada's lover. It featured such scenes as Wolverine torturing an innocent man by burning his eyes out with a cigar, doing heavy drugs, and watching lustfully as Yukio molests a woman in the subway for his pleasure.>Mangold planned to include Rogue as Logan's companion, and Ichiro Yashida would be revealed to possess the same powers as her, with Logan being the only one capable of survive being touched by Yashida, but Anna Paquin was unavailable.>Jackman wanted to bring Kevin Durand back as the Blob for a cameo, revealing that he became a sumo wrestling champion, but it was scrapped after the setting was changed to modern times.>Jessica Biel was approached for Viper before Svetlana Khodchenkova was cast.>Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa was approached for Yashida before Hal Yamanouchi was cast.>The movie was shot with a light R rating in mind, but later edited down into a hard PG-13.>There were plans for a sequel about Logan and Yukio going on an adventure in the island of Madripoor, but they were scrapped when X-Men: Days of Future Past was greenlit.
>After X-Men: First Class was retooled into a prequel to the original trilogy, Vaughn pitched a trilogy with a second movie further exploring the 1960s setting before concluding with an adaptation of “Days of Future Past” that would merge the two timelines. Fox didn’t want to wait that long and decided to go straight into DoFP, causing Vaughn to quit and Singer to step in to replace him.>Vaughn’s pitch for the second movie followed the X-Men (Professor Xavier, Beast, Havok and Banshee) trying to prevent the Brotherhood (Magneto, Mystique, Emma Frost, Azazel and Riptide) from assassinating John F. Kennedy for suppressing the mutants’ role in stopping the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only new mutant would be Magneto’s illegitimate daughter Polaris, who would join the X-Men and develop a romance with Havok.>Singer didn’t care for most of the supporting characters from X-Men: First Class and killed them off in-between movies, bringing back only Xavier, Magneto, Mystique and Beast as they had been featured in the original trilogy and thus needed to survive. Havok and Banshee were meant to die in Vietnam, but Caleb Landry-Jones wasn’t available, so Banshee was off-screen’d, while Singer enjoyed working with Lucas Till and decided to spare Havok (for now).
>The movie originally feature two additional mutants: Jubilee as member of the mutant resistance in the future, and Juggernaut as a dumb jock ex-student whom Xavier, Wolverine and Beast recruit to help them break Magneto out of the Pentagon.>Fox and Marvel had shared control over Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, so when Marvel announced the characters for Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, Fox scrambled to add Quicksilver to the movie, replacing Juggernaut, in order to beat Marvel to the punch. Josh Helman, who had already been cast as Juggernaut, was then given the role of young William Stryker.>An entire subplot about the mutant resistance rescuing Rogue from the X-Mansion overrun by Sentinels so she can replace Kitty Pryde as Wolverine's tether to the future was cut and later reintegrated to the movie in the domestic release.>The script included a post-credits scene where a meteor crash-lands outside Magneto's hideout in Mexico and Apocalypse emerges from the crater and possesses Magneto, which was replaced for the scene of young Apocalypse building the pyramids as featured in the movie.>The original ending featured a stable time loop of the movie’s events leading to Stryker capturing Wolverine. However, overwhelmingly positive test-screenings encouraged Fox to plan for many more movies, and as they wanted to keep featuring Wolverine, they ADR’d new dialogue from Xavier about the movie’s events altering the course of history, and digitally altered Stryker’s eyes to turn yellow to suggest Mystique had taken his place and would free Wolverine, thus cementing that the movie’s events created an alternative timeline.
>>143308552He wore the metal claws for the Weapon X breakout flashback, which he filmed in the nude, and turned around to find the female cast and crew - and James Marsden's mother – ogling him.Same energy as Hayley Atwell trying to cup Chris Evans' pecs while filming First Avenger.>He tried to cover himself and slashed his tight, requiring several stitches.Oof.>Fox auctioned off the custom-made Xavier wheelchair from the first movie and had to rent it out for Patrick Stewart to use in the sequel.How stupid was Fox, really?
>Fox wanted X-Men: Apocalypse to be an “Avengers-sized blockbuster,” which writer/producer Simon Kinberg believes is one of the reasons the movie flopped, as the X-Men are better-suited for smaller scaled, more personal stories.>Bryan Singer was reluctant to return, and spent most of the production drunk, yelling at actors, fighting with producers and disappearing for days, to the point where large sections of the film where ghost-directed by Kinberg instead.>The movie would originally feature Wolverine and Mystique working together to rescue endangered mutants, and Xavier recruiting Wolverine to train the young X-Men, but this was changed as Hugh Jackman had decided to retire from playing the character due to health concerns.>Xavier was meant to technically be the fourth Horseman as Apocalypse would use him to rid the world of nukes and telepathically threaten the humans. Test-audiences didn’t pick up on it and kept asking where the fourth Horseman was, so Psylocke was added in reshoots to fill the void, hence why she has no subplot and barely speaks.>The Weapon X segment tested poorly, so Wolverine's breakout was added in reshoots to spice up the scene.
>Taron Egerton was offered the role of Cyclops, but declined because he was holding out for Wolverine. Jamie Blackley, Charlie Rowe, Timothee Chalamet and Ben Hardy tested before Tye Sheridan was cast. Hardy was later cast as Archangel.>Chloe Moretz, Hailee Steinfeld and Elle Fanning tested for Jean Grey before Sophie Turner was cast.>Amber Stevens and Zendaya tested for Storm before Alexandra Shipp was cast.>Tom Hardy and Idris Elba were considered for Apocalypse before Oscar Isaac was cast.>The Quicksilver rescue segment was planned out with Michael Jackson's "Beat It" in mind, but Fox couldn't secure the rights to include the song in the movie and replaced it with Eurythmics's "Sweet Dreams".
>Hugh Jackman demanded that the movie be R-rated and invited James Mangold to write and direct due to their positive experience working together in The Wolverine.>Mister Sinister would originally be the main villain, but Mangold believed having a mutant supervillain be the mastermind behind mutant extinction would undermine the movie’s themes and replaced Sinister for Zander Rice, a human scientist who wiped out mutants almost by accident.>Liev Schreiber's Sabretooth would originally appear as the owner of an underground casino in Oklahoma City, who Logan would seek protection for Laura.>Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde would originally appear as the leader of an underground railroad for mutants where Logan and Xavier aspire to take Laura to protect her from Weapon X.>Early cuts feature the death of the X-Men during Xavier's breakdown, but Mangold felt that the circumstances of the incident were better left to the imagination.
>>143308437>>Viggo Mortensen was approached for Wolverine, but his son convinced him to turn it down because the script was not faithful to the comics.Based Viggo Jr
>>143308539It's genuinely mad how Singer just got away with his shit for so fucking long.I'm not talking about the pedophile side of things, but his behaviour on set. It'd be one thing if Hollywood people just looked the other way about his sex habits because he was a good director, but it seems like Singer had a habit of getting drunk and/or drugged up on the set of practically every single one of his X-Men films
>>143308437>Viggo Mortensen was approached for Wolverine, but his son convinced him to turn it down because the script was not faithful to the comics.Sort of a reverse Monkey's Paw. On one hand, based son, on the other Viggo deserves A-List money.
>>143308451natalie portman and anna paquin would have been better as shadowcat
>>143309766>>David Harbour tested for the Blob before Kevin Durand was hired, but was considered too fat for the role.>being too fat to play the BlobThat's gotta hurt
>Simon Kinberg volunteered to direct after Singer was fired due to his erratic behavior. Most of the cast only agreed to return despite their three-picture contracts having expired out of gratitude for Kinberg tard-wrangling Singer during the shooting of the previous films.>The movie would originally be a two-parter, but due to the impending Disney/Fox merger, Fox slashed the budget and demanded that Kinberg merge the two scripts into one, resulting in numerous characters and storylines being altered and cut.>Part 1 would feature the X-Men fighting to rescue the Phoenix from the Hellfire Club and Magneto’s Acolytes, and Part 2 would feature the Shi’ar Galactic Empire invading Earth to destroy the Phoenix before she becomes too powerful.>The Hellfire Club would be formed by Emma Frost, Shinobi Shaw, Freidrich Von Roehm, Harry Leland, the Fenris twins and the Red Lotus Gang.>Magneto’s Acolytes would include Psylocke, Sunfire and Sunspot.>X-Men recruits would include Dazzler, Match and Morph.>The Shi’ar were changed into the Skrulls and later the D’Bari because shapeshifters were more affordable. Jessica Chastain was cast as Shi’ar Empress Lilandra and would be a complex antagonist with a romance storyline with Xavier, and she was forced to continue even after Lilandra was retooled into D’Bari queen Vuk.>The original ending featured Cyclops and Xavier going to Washington, D.C. to warn the President about the Skrulls. They are ambushed by the Skrulls, but the Phoenix arrives and saves them, before sacrificing herself to destroy the Skrull armada approaching Earth. The ending was poorly-received by test-screenings and the entire third act was changed in reshoots to add more action, leading to the train battle featured in the final movie.
>>143310375that's just stupidity on the part of whoever made the decision
>The movie would originally be an X-Men: Apocalypse spinoff set in 1985, with Xavier recruiting the New Mutants and assigning Storm as their caretaker as they attempt to control their powers. After Apocalypse flopped, the movie was changed into a standalone project set in an unspecified period of time and with no direct ties to the X-Men.>The movie was originally a drama with horror elements, but after the success of the horror-oriented first trailer, Fox ordered reshoots to make the movie into a horror with drama elements. The reshoots were delayed several times amid the Disney/Fox merger and ultimately never realized.>Director Josh Boone originally planned a trilogy. The second movie would feature the New Mutants recruiting Karma and rescuing Warlock from the Hellfire Club in Brazil, and the third movie would feature the New Mutants battling the hordes of Limbo to save Magik after the demon Belasco corrupts her.>Early drafts featured Warlock as a member of the New Mutants and Mister Sinister as the mastermind responsible for capturing the New Mutants to weaponize their abilities.>Antonio Banderas would play the leader of the Hellfire Club and Sunspot’s father Emmanuel Da Costa in the sequels before they were scrapped.>Sacha Baron Cohen was approached for Warlock before the character was cut.>Jon Hamm was approached for Mister Sinister before the character was cut.>Rosario Dawson was originally cast as Dr. Cecilia Reyes, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Alice Braga.>Tru O’Brien auditioned for Mirage before Blu Hunt was cast.>Nat Wolff auditioned for Cannonball before Charlie Heaton was cast.>Caio Paduan auditioned for Sunspot before Henry Zaga was cast.
>>143308437Holy shit, what the fuck is Crowe's problem?
>>143310423He starred in Gladiator and it went to his head.
>>143310139>Fox wanted X-Men: Apocalypse to be an “Avengers-sized blockbuster,” which writer/producer Simon Kinberg believes is one of the reasons the movie flopped, as the X-Men are better-suited for smaller scaled, more personal stories>X-Men are better-suited for smaller scaled, more personal storiesNiggawat
>>143308437>Keanu Reeves as WolverineThere's no reality where that could have worked out.
>>143308429>producers compared the ideological conflict between Professor Xavier and Magneto to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.This shit was always cringe
>>143308493>Rebecca Romijn accidentally knocked out Bruce Davison with a kick to the face and threw up on Jackman while filming their fight scene.
>>143310422I feel pain when I remember this movie
>>143308507>and removed the Sentinels at the behest of Fox President Tom Rothman, who claimed audiences wouldn’t take the movie seriously if it featured giant robots.Crazy how /co/mblr will still praise these flicks.
>>143309776Y'know, I'm so glad Reynolds was able to get closure on the whole Dudepeel fiasco.
>>143311025They are still good, retard.
>>143310182All of the cut ideas were better than a bunch of Mexican maids handling the mutant underground railway.
>>143311160Can you ever explain why?
>>143311220Good acting, good effects, good script, good action.It's not that complicated.
>>143309983>and watching lustfully as Yukio molests a woman in the subway for his pleasure.Based as fuck
>>143310018Tom Rothman is legendarily stupid.Now he's stupidier at Sony
>>143308451I don't have any physical evidence (nor have I found any online sources to back it up) but I have something to add about the Cyclops casting. I was taking a toy design class a little while back and my teacher showed off some early concept art from the X1 toy line. One of these pieces was a Cyclops figure based on Jason Lee‚ he even used it as an example to explain the difficulties that come from designing products for a movie. Again‚ I can't find anything online to backup if Lee's name was ever even in the mix for the role but I swear the concept art I saw was real.
>>143311418>I was taking a toy design class a little while back How do i get into this? I love toys especially action figures and itd be my dream job to work on designing them
>>143311233>absolutely generic blanket statementslmao
>>143311502Not to somewhat dox myself but I went to Otis and they had full courses related to that field. I'm not sure if they still offer them as of this year‚ but at least when I was going you could have it as a major.
I'm not OP, but I wanted to post some early concept art.
>>143311677
>>143311700
>>143309776They treated poor Ryan like cattle, but he got the last laugh. Justice does exist in this world.
>>143311677That cobra Mystique is actually pretty cool, but I doubt it'd look good in live action
>>143311667Thx boss ill try to look into this more
>>143311418considering vince vaughn of all people was offered the role it's not that far off to believe lee's name might have been brought up at one point, if your story is actually true. but i weirdly kind of see the vision for it, now looking at it he has sort of the right face for the visor.
main thing I get from all of this is how shit franchises can be when they get test-screened and subsequently studio hacked. They have absolutely no soul when you're constantly trying to appease the whims of whoever you got to advance screen and if you rely on these exclusively youll always be like 2 steps behind the general publics tastes.
man, this shit just needs to stay a cartoon. Or several cartoons idk just not trying to make it into movies, it just doesnt work.
>>143308451>Triple H screen-tested for Sabretooth.god he would have been fantastic for that role
all I'm glad for is that these things walked so Iron Man could run.I prefer what 10moreso years of MCU have done that these things. I would not pick any of these movies over the Avengers.
>>143312932...you wouldn't pick x2 or Logan over avengers?
>>143311677So the costumes were always going to be shit
>>143312965>x2>loganyou could've got me with DOFP, only retards get emotional about logan.
>>143308467I'm sorry they ruined your toad jokes, joss.
>>143313205Are you single? Wanna date me?The first person I see being sane about this fucking movie. It's a reharshed faux-western story with a dishonest attitude towards what it claims to homage (what the FUCK was that scene with the fake comic books? Couldn't get the rights to the real books yet you insist on this pathetic attempt to nostalgia bait nerds fuck off) Only saving grace is Daphne
>>143309790>Tom Hardy WolverineHe's actually closer in size than Jackman, I would've been okay with it
>>143313499
>>143308429Intresting stuff
>>143308467Whedon's script also had logan and storm ending as an item iirc.
>>143310859its accurate
>>143312744the thing I get from it is that it’s a miracle the X-films were ever good at all. X2 somehow was great due to Singer and the executives cancelling each other out.
>>143315632Really if the X-Men movies came out today they'd be hated for all of the deviations they made to characters and plotlines. They are tolerated now as their own thing.
>>143312932I would pick a literal turd over The Avengers.I had to watch EMH as a palate cleanser after being over-exposed to Joss' smug garbage writing.
And here I thought things only unravelled behind the scenes of The Last Stand. We're fucking lucky we got any functioning X-Men movies at all, apparently.
>>143312932>all I'm glad for is that these things walked so Iron Man could run.Iron Man was also plagued with production issues and had to largely improvise a script; it was a great film, but entirely a fluke. The Marvel Studios stuff doesn't start gaining momentum with making action movies until the first Avengers is under their belt.
