It’s difficult to think back about this, since we’ve had years of bad sequels, but Matthew Vaughn was, at one point, hired by Fox to revamp, and effectively reboot, the “X-Men” franchise. He implemented his reboot strategy with a period superhero film called “X-Men: First Class.” But soon after that film failed to really blow up the box office, Fox went back to Bryan Singer and the rest is history.
So, when ComingSoon caught up with Vaughn, he was asked why he didn’t continue with his trilogy plans and what fans could have seen if he did.
“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue, because they didn’t listen to me,” said Vaughn. “My plan was ‘First Class,’ then the second film was new young Wolverine in the 70’s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men. So you’d really get to know all of them, and my finale was gonna be ‘Days of Future Past.’”
The ‘Days of Future Past’ storyline, much like “Dark Phoenix,” is one of the seminal ‘X-Men’ adventures, with a hero from a distant, post-apocalyptic future coming back to the current day to warn the mutants about some threat they have to prevent. So, it makes sense that Vaughn would build up to this storyline, especially considering that the “Dark Phoenix” story was already butchered in ‘The Last Stand,’ making “Days of Future Past” the crown jewel of stories that have yet to be adapted.
Alas, the filmmaker’s exuberance was ultimately the downfall of the planned trilogy.
“When I finished the ‘Days of Future Past’ script with it ready to go I looked at it and said, ‘I really think it would be fun to cast Tom Hardy or someone as the young Wolverine and then bring it all together at the end,’” the filmmaker revealed. “Fox read ‘Days of Future Past’ and went ‘Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!’”
He continued, “And I said, ‘Well what do you do next? Trust me you’ve got nowhere to go.’ Then they did ‘Apocalypse’ and it’s like… If you flip that ’round even it would have been better. Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing. Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash.”
Obviously, Vaughn is being a bit generous with his ‘Apocalypse’ hot take. That film is widely regarded as one of the worst X-films of the series, and by far, the worst that was helmed by Bryan Singer. It would have taken a lot to make that film watchable, with pacing only being one of its myriad problems.
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That being said, Tom Hardy as Wolverine will probably likely go down as one of the best “almost cast” stories in superhero film history. Without a doubt, Hugh Jackman is a tough man to replace as the character, considering he has been our only Wolverine in 20 years, but Hardy is probably one of those guys that could have done a pretty great job, if given the opportunity. Now, with the actor tackling the “Venom” franchise for Sony, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever see him with the unbreakable claws.
Considering that Vaughn created one of the better “X-Men” films with ‘First Class,’ it’s a shame that he wasn’t able to fully bring his trilogy plans to fruition. But hey, hopefully, Marvel Studios can restore the heroes to their former glory.