X-Men: First Class didn't exactly stick all that closely to the comic books, but it was still pretty fantastic and successfully told the origin stories of Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique. Unfortunately, director Matthew Vaughn didn't return for the sequel, which was instead helmed by Bryan Singer.
Since then, the franchise has jumped ahead by a decade with each new instalment (despite its cast not ageing), and the filmmaker has now revealed what he originally had planned for his trilogy.
"My plan was First Class, then, the second film was new young Wolverine in the '70s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men," he revealed.
"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?"
He added that Fox loved the idea of bringing the two casts together so much, they immediately wanted to jump to that, a decision which led to him walking away from
X-Men: Days of Future Past.
"If you flip that ’round even it would have been better," Vaughn said, explaining that he wanted to introduce the new Wolverine first.
"Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing. Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash."
As for who he wanted to cast as this version of Wolverine, the filmmaker revealed that he was eyeing Tom Hardy for the role.
"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.'"
It's heartbreaking that this never happened, especially when the franchise has declined in quality over the past few years (
Dark Phoenix is expected to be a critical and commercial flop).
Do you wish Vaughn could have directed his
X-Men trilogy?
ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.