After the critical and financial disasters that X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine ultimately were, 20th Century Fox shifted gears with a prequel reboot (of sorts) with Matthew Vaughn‘s X-Men: First Class in 2011. It did well enough at the box office to warrant another Wolverine film with Hugh Jackman and several other titles — including the forthcoming Dark Phoenix — but Vaughn was no longer a part of the picture. In a new interview, he explained what happened and what his scrapped plans were.
Speaking with Coming Soon, Vaughn claimed that he ultimately didn’t continue with the franchise following First Class because the studio “didn’t listen” to his sequel plans:
“My plan was First Class, then 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. That was gonna be my number three where you bring them all… because what’s bigger than bringing in McKellen and Michael and Stewart and James and bringing them all together? 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.’ Fox read Days of Future Past and went ‘Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!'”
The idea that Tom Hardy might play a younger version of the Wolverine character, or at least take the mantle if Jackman had decided to drop it earlier, isn’t new. The Australian actor himself floated the idea publicly in 2015. What’s new about Vaughn’s comments, rather, is the fact that he had some very specific plans for a spate of First Class sequels leading to Days of Future Past, as opposed to what ultimately happened with the films.
“Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing,” Vaughn added about the studio’s decision to rush ahead with Days of Future Past. “Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash.”
(Via Coming Soon)