The X-Men movie franchise is arguably one of the greatest superhero franchises that predates — and even paved the way for — the MCU. Indeed, the original X-Men trilogy is not technically a part of the MCU. That being said, the original X-Men films brought some of the most beloved Marvel superheros to life through fantastic casting and unique effects. While all the films in the franchise have their own unique features, the original trilogy brought its own flavor to the mutants, bringing some political issues to light.
While the original X-Men film from 2000 is an absolute gem that started it all, it wasn’t all rosy from the start. As a matter of fact, X-Men was in developmental hell for a long time before actually hitting the screen. Let’s explore this nightmarishly long development process that X-Men had to go through in order to become what it is today.
Development Began in 1984
20th Century Studios
While it may be hard to fathom, the original screenplay for the very first X-Men film was written back in 1984 by Marvel Comics writers and chief editors Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. Per Coming Soon, the screenplay was brought to Orion pictures, but development hit a standstill when Orion found itself in financial trouble and the film was not brought up again for a number of years. Between 1989 and 1990, Stan Lee led discussions with Carolco Pictures surrounding the film, with the idea of James Cameron directing until Carolco went bankrupt in 1992 and the rights reverted to Marvel.
20th Century Fox Takes Over
Since the fall of the original production companies lined up to fund the project, Marvel was at a loss as to who would fund the project. Thanks to the success of the animated X-Men series that hit screens in 1992, 20th Century Fox decided to purchase the rights to the film in 1994. However, with this new management came a new writer for the script: Ander Kevin Walker. Walker’s draft focused on the rivalry between Wolverine and Cyclops and sourced the Chernobyl disaster to Magneto. This script was rewritten several times with key aspects of the story changing over and over by writers Laeta Laogridis and Michael Chabon. Furthermore, Brett Ratner, Robert Rodriguez, and Paul W. S Anderson were all considered as directors before they eventually settled on Bryan Singer. 1996 hits, and while this decision was made, rewrites of the script continued by Ed Solomon and Fox announced the release date of Christmas 1998. Script revisions continued into 1997 and Chris Claremont went out of his way to send Fox a memo talking about the X-Men to help move development along.
Budgetary Issues and More Rewrites
In 1998, Singer and DeSanto sent in the final treatment that Fox thought was perfect in expressing the discrimination that mutants felt, however, this treatment was rejected as the studio estimated that this would go beyond their initial budget. Specific characters were removed from the film in order for X-Men to finally begin development, including Pyro, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Danger Room. When Joss Whedon was brought in to write the last act of the film, he stated that the story required a major rewrite. However, Whedon’s rewrite was rejected as having a “pop-culture referencing tone” that didn’t align with what Fox wanted. At the table read, Whedon was completely unaware that his script had been rejected. David Hayter was brought in to rewrite, and his script was kept as he stayed true to the comics, but even his script was torn apart by Fox despite him getting full credit.
Casting the X-Men
Casting began in 1995, starting with Wolverine. Russell Crowe and Glenn Danzig turned down the role. Dougray Scott was originally cast as Wolverine, but had to back out due to Mission: Impossible 2 conflicting with the filming schedule on top of a motorcycle accident. But thanks to a recommendation from Crowe, Hugh Jackman was brought onboard three weeks into filming. The role of Professor X was always meant to be Sir Patrick Stewart’s as Singer would not have anyone else. The rest of casting went relatively smoothly, apart from Charlize Theron turning down the role of Jean Grey.
Filming and Release
Actual filming didn’t begin until mid-1999 with the release date being moved from December 2000 to June 2000, six months ahead of schedule. Fortunately, Fox found a bit of leeway and pushed the release date another month to allow Singer more wiggle room, but not much. Singer had a lot on his plate already, but now he was forced to pull this film together with less time than promised. This led to a great deal of strain on set as Singer was “problematic” and abusing painkillers during filming.
Needless to say, X-Men spent decades in developmental hell as the execs at the top spent forever figuring out the final details of the script. It would seem that the biggest reason why X-Men was not released sooner was that 20th Century Fox didn’t like the scripts that were presented to them and were constantly changing the story. Were it not for this, it’s entirely possible that X-Men could have been a 90s film. That being said, X-Men would not be the gem it is today without all of this hassle.
