CHAPTER 7:
RETURN OF THE SINGER
In 2006, Lauren Shuler Donner stated that an X4 would require renegotiation. FOX liked the idea of an X4, and the new cast members from X3 were signed on. Donner said that of all the stories she wanted to do, one of here favorites was Days of Future Past.
However, before X4, FOX put out First Class. They saw First Class as the beginning of a new X-Men trilogy. And fans who stuck around after they were disappointed with X3 and Origins loved the idea. Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer would return to direct and produce a First Class sequel. Vaughn compared First Class to Batman Begins and said that the second one is where you get the already established characters and put them in a fun action movie like TDK.
Anyway, Vaughn said that the film would open with a bullet curving through the air and killing JFK and the bullet would be controlled by Magneto. The film would be written by Simon Kinberg, a producer on the X-Men films and writer of X3. While either Bishop or Cable were supposed to be the time-travler, but Kinberg decided to use Wolverine because of his ageless look. Also, Kinberg wanted Rachael Summers to be the one who sent back Wolverine. She was replaced by Kitty Pryde, who was given a secondary power by Kinberg. How did she get them?
Unfortunatley, not a lot of X-Men fans took her secondary powers well.
Also, younger versions of Nightcrawler and The Juggernaut (BITCH!), as well as Jubilee & Psylocke were set to appear. Also, the original comic had the Sentinals be created because the Brotherhood killed a senator. In the movie, it's just Mystique killing Trask. Oh yeah, also with this being Days of Future Past, FOX was FINALLY able to use the sentinals.
However, in 2012, Vaughn left the project in order to direct Kingsman. So it was decided that they couldn't do it anymore. They couldn't try and find anyone else... but the person who had started this all. After all these years, Bryan Singer decided to step up from producer to director.
Anyway, with this being a time-travel movie, Bryan Singer had a two-hour conversation with James Cameron (who was a supposed to produce the first X-Men), about time travel, sting theory, etc. Also, in the movie Charles mocks Wolverine by saying"F*ck off". In the original First Class script, that was Wolverine's line, but Jackman wanted to say "Go F*ck Yourself", so technically Charles got the line right. Orignally, Rogue had a subplot in the movie, but that got cut and she only appeared at the very end. Also, in the original storyline, the Sentinals also wiped out the Hulk, Ghost Rider, The Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. I bring this up because FOX could have put a few of those since they had the rights, but plans for a crossover were not official (and they never will be).
Speaking of rights, let's talk about Quicksilver. Originally the Juggernaut,
Anyway, the Juggnernaut was supposed to be the one that Wolverine gets to break Magneto out of the Pentagon. This explains why Wolverine said "I know a guy" when Quicksilver never appeared yet. Also, Kinberg & Donner thought they would never use Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch due to Marvel having the rights. However, when Marvel said they weren'tmaking them mutants because they didn't have the X-Men rights, they saw their chance to bring in Quicksilver. So they replaced Quicksilver with the Juggernaut and even manage to squeeze in a reference to his parents...
Now for casting. Bryan Singer approached Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, who were touing in the play Waiting for Gadot, if they wanted to reprise their roles. Stewart and McKellan, who thought their days of playing the roles were over due to First Class, said yes. Josh Helman was supposed to play the Juggernaut before the role was remoived, but Singer made it up to him by casting him as a young Bill Stryker. Renee Diamond was supposed to play Blink, but was replaced by Fan Bingbing. Jamie Bower was supposed to play Quicksilver, but the role went to Evan Peters. On April 1, Singer announced that Stefani Germanotta (I refuse to say her stage name) was to play Dazzler. If you saw the date above, you know why this didn't happen.
Also their was some controversy because all the hardcore Marvel fans hated the look of the Quicksilver. People were all like "that Quicksilver SUCKS! Marvel's going to do it better. FOX CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT". Nowadays, it's the complete opposite: there aren't a lot of fans of the MCU Quicksilver, and FOX's Quicksilver is so awesome that he's my avatar.
On Memorial Day weekend, the film was finally released, and IT WAS AMAZING! The film got praise from everyone for the story, the writing, the characters, the action, the acting, the drama, the effects, the humour, the ending, the post-credits scene, EVERYTHING! Some people (including me) even liked this movie better than The Winter Soldier. I will even say that this is the best X-Men film yet. At the box office, while it made as much as X3 statesaide, it's the highest-grossing X-Men film worldwide! This couldn't get any better.
While there wasn't as much Rogue as promised, the deleted scenes in The Rogue cut are great, and they even include refrences to Scarlet Witch (and maybe Polaris).
People loved the X-Men film franchise again, with some saying it's just as good as Marvel's.And two months later, something even more glorius happened to show that all the bad X-Men films have been forgetten and all was forgiven...
Just a day or two after Comic-Com 2014, Deadpool test footage leaked online (or FOX put it out there). And people realized how much they wanted a Deadpool movie. So the fans begged FOX to make one. No, not "Oh, I wish FOX could give the rights for Deadpool to Marvel because only Marvel can make good CBMs". People wanted FOX, the studio that screwed it up the first time, to make a Deadpool movie. So, a couple months later, FOX announced a Deadpool movie with Ryan Reynolds.
For FOX, 2014 was a great year... for their X-Men movies. See, in 2011, FOX announced their first Marvel non-X project since 2007. And in 2014, things were getting darker with horrid on-set stories and fan response. And while the praise for the X-Men grew, so did the hatred for this project.
TO BE CONTINUED...