And so we
have come to the third entry to the Franchise and possibly one of the more
infamous ones. X-men: The Last Stand was released in 2006 and it had a hell of a production
history. Bryan Singer, who had directed the first two movies left to direct
Superman returns instead… You’d think that’d be the obvious way to go but Superman
returns received a mixed reception and made less money than this movie.
Beyond that,
the main actors were only contracted for 2 films, so their contracts had to be
renewed, for Hugh Jackman that meant getting director approval. Matthew Vaughn
was assigned to direct when they entered pre-production but family issues meant
he departed before filming started. In the end they hired Brett Ratner, who
really didn’t know a lot about the X-men.
In the
writing department we have Simon Kinberg, who at that point had written
Fantastic 4 and Elektra… Be afraid…
And of
course we have studio interference as well, with a lot of the original elements
for Jean Grey’s role ordered to be cut down because it was considered too dark
for a summer blockbuster. They also killed for major character deaths and I’ll
get to that in the story section.
Which is
right now, so take a look at X-men 3
