Long before Bryan Singer helped usher in the super hero craze [Blade, really started it] legendary X-Men comic book writer Chris Claremont had a plan to give us an X-Men film with James Cameron producing, Kathryn Bigelow directing, and starring Bob Hoskins as Wolverine and Angela Bassett as Storm. Now, we've
heard from Claremont before on the subject of Hoskins as Wolverine but this time he shares a little more detail on why that never came to pass and whose to blame.
"James Cameron, Bob Hoskins, Angela Bassett -- ahhh. Fanboy heaven. I would have been happy as a clam," Claremont said.
Claremont stated that he saw Bob Hoskins in 1984's Lassiter and just knew that he was the actor had the right intensity to portray Wolverine on the silver screen.
James Cameron, fresh off success from Terminator and Aliens, had just launched his own studio, Lightstorm Entertainment, in 1990, and on one fateful afternoon had a visit from Claremeont and Stan "The Man" Lee who were there to pitch an X-Men movie to him.
"Just think about this for a minute: James Cameron's X-Men. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. That's what we were playing," Claremont said.
"So we're chatting. And at one point Stan looks at Cameron and says, 'I hear you like Spider-Man.' Cameron's eyes lit up."
"And they start talking. And talking. And talking. About 20 minutes later all the Lightstorm guys and I are looking at each other, and we all know the X-Men deal has just evaporated. Kathryn goes off and writes a screen treatment for X-Men that was eaten alive by all the idiots who have a piece of Spider-Man because Marvel during its evolution has sold off the rights time and time and time again. To Carolco. To Universal. To this to that. To Fox. It was just a nightmare."
Bob Hoskins definitely had the right height and amount of body hair to play Wolverine.
Claremont is not alone in wanting Bassett to have played Storm over Halle Berry. Of course, she would go on to play Amanda Waller in Green Lantern.
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