While Blade is often credited with ushering in a new era of superhero movies, it was really X-Men and Spider-Man which set the stage for what would one day become the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Filmmaker Bryan Singer didn't have much love or respect for the comic books, going so far as to ban the cast from reading them. They responded to that by passing issues around in secret on set as if they were prison contraband!
X-Men writer David Hayter recently took to X to respond to a fan who mentioned how the 2000 movie popularised the idea of Magneto's helmet being able to block Professor X's psychic abilities.
"This happened because the director [Bryan Singer] said one day, 'Why couldn't Xavier just make Magneto go to sleep or something?' No one had an answer," he admitted. "So we decided it was the helmet."
In fairness, there is a precedent for this in the comic books: Magneto wore his now-iconic helmet during his first appearance in the pages of X-Men #1 in 1963. However, both it and the Master of Magnetism's abilities were portrayed rather inconsistently, and it was never really explicitly stated that the helmet could fend off psychics.
Instead, Marvel Comics established that hidden circuitry within the iconic headpiece nullified Charles Xavier's powers. Regardless, neither Singer nor Hayter turned to the source material for their explanation and, in the movies, it came across like the leader of the X-Men simply couldn't read someone's mind if they, say, had a hat on.
It feels like Singer is getting too much credit here, anyway, as he'd have been able to answer that question of he'd just picked up a comic!
X-Men follows Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as he joins the X-Men, a group fighting against Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants, who believe in mutant supremacy. The film explores themes of prejudice and acceptance, reflecting the X-Men comics' social allegory.
With a strong ensemble cast, including Halle Berry as Storm and Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, X-Men marked the beginning of a successful film franchise that would continue for years, laying the foundation for the modern era of superhero cinema. Unfortunately, the franchise declined over the years and ended with something of a whimper with Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants.
How do you feel about Hayter's X-Men explanation? Let us know in the comments section below.