Trivia / X-Men: The Last Stand

• Actor Leaves, Character Dies:
  • James Marsden's commitment to Superman Returns led to Cyclops being killed off early in the film.
  • In a non-lethal example, Rebecca Romijn's commitment to Pepper Dennis lead to Mystique being de-powered.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Ben Foster described playing Angel as being like "living in a theme park for six months".
  "I got to fly around and kick bad guys' asses."
• B-Team Sequel: To the Bryan Singer-helmed X-Men and X2: X-Men United, after that director left the franchise to make Superman Returns.
• California Doubling:
  • The scene with the protest outside the cure clinic was not in front of a massive skyscraper, but a very nondescript two-floor building.
  • Jean Grey's childhood home is in the Vancouver suburb of Tsawwassen.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Shohreh Aghdashloo was originally going to play Dr. Cecilia Reyes, a rival to Dr. Kavita Rao, but after Vaughn left the project, she was recast as Rao herself.
• The Cast Showoff: Shawn Ashmore, being from Toronto, has experience with ice skating, and so had no trouble with his skating scene
• Costume Backlash: Vinnie Jones later described suiting up as the Juggernaut as "a toll". It was for this reason that he declined to cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Co-writer Simon Kinberg (who would then be writer/producer of the series starting with X-Men: First Class) admitted "There are a lot of things about 'X3' that I love and there are a lot of things that I regret", mostly regarding how Executive Meddling forced the Dark Phoenix plot to get the short shift. Given that Dark Phoenix was planned to be a more faithful adaptation of the saga, and Kinberg not only wrote, but even personally directed, one could argue that the 2019 film was his attempt at making up for what was missed the first time around. Sadly, that one actually fared worse than this one did.
  • Famke Janssen took longer to come out and say it, but she disliked Jean's treatment in the film too. When she was cast as Jean for the first film, fans excitedly told her about the Phoenix storyline. She read the comics and loved it, hoping they would get to do it in the films. When they didn't, she was hugely disappointed and said the movie had "too many subplots".
  • Anna Paquin and producer Lauren Shuler Donner were amongst the participants in this movie who were not happy about the idea of Rogue taking the mutant "cure".
  • Many years later, Elliot Page admitted that he did not have a good time making the film, due in no small part to homophobic bullying he had to put up with from Brett Ratner (who, ironically, was the one who brought him to the film). Rebecca Romijn also expressed her displeasure with working with Ratner.
  • Even Bryan Singer, who took no part in the film's production, has his own reasons to backlash against it: he has stated he repents bitterly having declined to direct the film, confessing that he realized his mistake "before I was watching it, during watching it, after watching it." Once he saw it - a bootleg copy instead of in theaters, no less - Singer was dissatisfied with the busy plot and excessive character deaths, but approved some parts, such as Leech and Shadowcat, with the latter even being brought back once Singer returned.
• Creator-Chosen Casting:
  • Brett Ratner cast Elliot Page after seeing him in Hard Candy.
  • Ratner cast Josef Sommer as the President of the USA after working with him on The Family Man.
• Creator's Favorite: Kelsey Grammer has gone on record saying that Beast is one of his favorite roles of his career. He accepted to do an audition for this film (the first Grammer did in over twenty years) and later to a last-minute secret reprise in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Furthermore, he would get portray the MCU's version of Beast in The Stinger of The Marvels.
• Dawson Casting: Elliot Page was already 19 when playing the teenage Kitty Pryde.
• Deleted Role: The actor who played Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) was intended to have a much larger presence (including a fight scene with both Juggernaut and Magneto, who throws Colossus away when he armors up). Almost the entirety of his role is deleted, and he appears in a non-speaking background role for the entirety of the film.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Kelsey Grammer's makeup as Beast, and Vinnie Jones in a muscle suit for Juggernaut. Cameron Bright also had to shave his hair daily, and pass makeup on the scalp (as Leech had to look more like a chemotherapy survivor than a shaven kid).
• Executive Meddling:
  • Basically everything can be attributed to Fox not being willing to wait on Bryan Singer (he didn't have a full script, and went to accept the opportunity to make Superman Returns), then setting up a May 2006 release date with less than eighteen months to do the whole thing and no script. Matthew Vaughn was eventually alienated by family issues and the studio's restrictions, and the writers could not use the Phoenix saga as much as they wanted given the executives only preferred the cure story (thus Jean barely has anything to do in the second act). Some mutants were also vetoed to make them appear in X-Men Origins: Wolverine instead.
  • While it was originally said that the main reason Singer left for Superman Returns was that he was a huge fan of Superman, there was actually another aspect to why Singer left. After the second movie, the studio had to negotiate a new deal with him and his team, which was standard practice. However, the story goes that Tom Rothman (who reportedly insisted the X-Men movies would be failures and didn't like being proven wrong, to the point that Deadpool (2016) infamously and gleefully took shots at him after being greenlit years later after he had left the company) deliberately dragged it out — much to the frustration of everyone else involved. Fox's rivals at Warner Bros. noticed this and dangled the Superman movie in front of Singer in order to get him to jump ship. One story goes that when Rothman found out that Singer accepted the job to do Superman Returns, he ordered security to kick him off the lot, then had to bring him back onto the lot a week later so Singer could shoot the pilot to House.
• Fake American: The Canadian Elliot Page as Kitty Pryde.
• Fake Nationality: Iranian Shohreh Aghdashloo as Indian Dr.Kavita Rao
• Foiler Footage: For the ending, they filmed the "Bobby discovers Rogue" scene both ways. That is, one where she took the "mutant cure" and one where she didn't. The DVD Commentary said that a poll was taken on set about whether she should take the cure or not. Once it was chosen, there were two options, them holding hands or kissing. Test screenings with the executives' daughters and some studio female employees led to the former, mostly because for avoiding the inherent sexualization in the latter.
• Hostility on the Set: Elliot Page talked in November 2017 about homophobic bullying he received from Brett Ratner. Anna Paquin backed up his claims.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Ben Foster (Angel) is actually terrified of heights.
• Killed by Request: On hearing that Bryan Singer would not be directing the movie, James Marsden, who played Cyclops, requested that his character be killed off. His petition was successful and he was killed off at the beginning of the film. Still, Ratner left his death offscreen in order to leave open the possibility of a return.
• No Stunt Double: Many of the actors performed their own stunts in the film.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast had a small cameo in human form in X2, being played by Steve Bacic. Here, he was replaced by Kelsey Grammer.
  • Shadowcat gets a new performer again, with Elliot Page replacing Katie Stuart (who replaced Sumela Kay in X2). Page would be the first to play the character in multiple films, reprising the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past eight years later.
• Playing Against Type: Ben Foster usually plays crazy violent psychos. Here he plays the nervous and soft-spoken Warren Worthington/Angel.
• Playing with Character Type: While most people knew Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane, any kid growing up from the '90s to now would know him as villains Sideshow Bob or Stinky Pete. So it's quite a shock to see an intellectual villain actor play an intellectual hero with super strength.
• Production Posse: Bryan Singer took his one to Superman Returns, but Brett Ratner brought two of his own collaborators to replace them - cinematographer Dante Spinotti and editor Mark Helfrich - and also actor Ken Leung as a spiked mutant.
• Troubled Production: Especially in pre-production, as indicated by the Executive Meddling entry above, as Bryan Singer left to direct Superman Returns and took Cyclops actor James Marsden and co-writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris with him, and replacement Matthew Vaughn quit before filming due to family issues and Creative Differences (along with the studio interference, Vaughn stated that with the deadlines imposed by Fox he "didn't have the time to make the movie that I wanted to make"; Vaughn only accepted to make X-Men: First Class on a tight schedule years later because Fox gave him creative freedom.). During filming, eventual director Brett Ratner drove away cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, (Dante Spinotti, who had worked with Ratner on Red Dragon hurriedly taking over the role, and then being replaced himself for the final leg of filming by James Muro, after Spinotti had to honor a prior commitment) and clashed with both Elliot Page (who he Forced Out of the Closet as a lesbian^*he would later come out as transgender in front of the crew) and Vinnie Jones (who complained that Ratner cut most of Juggernaut's lines and retooled the few that he did have to make him much more of a Dumb Muscle comic relief character). A rather telling consequence of the film's hectic production cycle was that it ended up being the first X-Men movie to not have a dedicated product line, as first action figures only came out one year after release (somewhat ironic, since the main reason behind the obscene number of characters in the movie, which resulted in people being left Out of Focus or getting anticlimactic deaths, was potential toy sales).
• Wag the Director: At the very early stages of the film, Halle Berry demanded even more money for this film, with rumors flying that she wouldn't even cameo in the film without a huge paycheck. After Catwoman (2004) crashed and burned, her final paycheck (after she begged for her part back) was said to be a lot smaller than demanded. On a different level, she wanted to be able to fly in this film (Storm not having done it in previous ones), and her wish was granted.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Eliza Dushku, Maggie Grace and Summer Glau auditioned for the part of Kitty Pryde before Elliot Page was cast. Grace was turned down due to the fact that she was considered "too old" for the role. Coincidentally, Glau asked Joss Whedon for advice on the character without knowing he had written Astonishing X-Men #5 and her audition script turned out to be pages from the comic.
  • Jason Flemyng was considered for Hank McCoy before the casting of Kelsey Grammer. Flemyng would eventually go on to portray Azazel in X-Men: First Class.
  • Mike Vogel was originally chosen as Warren Worthington III before Ben Foster was cast. However, Vogel dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts with Poseidon.
  • Josh Holloway was approached for Remy LeBeau while he was still a major part of the script. However, Holloway turned down the offer due to the role being too similar to Sawyer Ford on Lost. Gambit would later debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine played by Taylor Kitsch.
  • Matthew Vaughn was initially chosen to direct the film before Brett Ratner was hired. However, Vaughn departed the project due to familial issues and Creative Differences over the script. Vaughn would eventually go on to helm X-Men: First Class.
    • Peter Berg, Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon were offered to direct the movie as well. Snyder turned it down due to filming commitments to 300, while Whedon declined in favor of writing and directing a Wonder Woman movie, which unfortunately never came through. Whedon would go on to direct The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
    • Darren Aronofsky, Rob Bowman, Alex Proyas and John Moore were also considered to direct the movie before Ratner was hired.
  • According to an interview with Michael Dougherty (the screenwriter of X2: X-Men United), his vision for The Last Stand was vastly different, and would have included the Phoenix/Jean being a cosmic force that attacks various locations across the world (and chooses to leave of her own volition at the end of the film), Cyclops building the Danger Room as a way to cope with his guilt and make the team stronger, and Rogue coming to terms with who she is and choosing not to take the cure.
  • In Bryan Singer's plan for the film, Cyclops and Jean would have been the center, and they would have been entangled in a three-way war for Phoenix's control between the X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants and the Hellfire Club. The last of those would have been directed by an older Emma Frost (played by Sigourney Weaver), while the first one would have added Gambit (Keanu Reeves) and Dazzler (Northern Irish-Canadian country singer Beverley Mahood) as new members. Similarly, Kelly Hu would have possibly returned as Lady Deathstrike, who would have been revealed to be alive after the events of the previous film. At the end, Jean would have committed suicide to save them all by telekinetically forcing Scott to look at her and then removing his visor, and after her death she would have turned into a divine being a la 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • In Matthew Vaughn's vision, the X-Men were much more active during the cure storyline, to the extent that Beast and Rogue broke into Worthington' Labs in order to investigate it. Also, Storm and Wolverine would be in a sexual relationship.
  • Even after Singer's plan was scrapped, the role of Gambit remained in the film for a long time. He would have been rumoredly played by Channing Tatum and would have served as a romantic rival to Bobby, similar to how Kitty was one for Rogue. However, Fox was already concocting X-Men Origins: Wolverine and wanted Gambit for that film, so he was erased from the script.
  • There was an unfilmed Danger Room sequence where Bobby and Kitty are training and are then supposedly blasted to pieces by Sentinels, only to sit up as (projected) skeletons as the team looks on.
  • Despite Alan Cumming's discomfort with the prosthetic makeup, he was willing to return in this film as Nightcrawler, but he was written out due to Fox realising that it wasn't worthwhile to pay for the long and costly makeup process as the character's role in the film was going to be very minimal.
  • Brett Ratner wanted to appease the fans by ditching the black leather costumes from the previous movies and replacing them with something more colorful, but the rushed production schedule prevented this. That's why there's a single scene where Storm can be seen wearing a brighter blue uniform◊.
  • The final film had a large amount of footage cut from it, some of which still hasn't been released in any form. There was much more footage of supporting mutants like Psylocke and Colossus (who not only had a fight with Juggernaut, but even confronted Magneto at one point before being tossed aside by him), and several extra endings, including a rumored one where Pyro returns to the school after being presumed missing in the final cut.
  • The scene with Bobby and Kitty ice skating on the frozen pond after Xavier's funeral originally ended with them kissing. The kiss was dropped because several members of the production crew were disturbed by it, since (as stated on the DVD) Shawn Ashmore looked much older than Elliot Page.
  • The Golden Gate bridge sequence was to only happen in the middle of the film - with Magneto breaking Mystique out of Alcatraz. He then would have marched on the White House, intending to take control there. Brett Ratner felt that the Golden Gate Bridge sequence was more exciting as a climax, and relocated Worthington Labs from DC to Alcatraz.
  • The scene in which Magneto gets his powers back while playing chess on a park went through several versions. In the original, he was playing with a stranger who was revealed to be Xavier in another man's body, but as Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were unavailable to play the scene together, it was scrapped. In the next version, the stranger was Mystique, who would have been recovered her powers through a special drug she would pass to Magneto. At the end, however, they choose to shoot it with Magneto alone and to give Xavier his own scene; this was done secretly, so much that Stewart and McKellen didn't even know if the scenes would be in the film's cut or not.
  • Ratner wanted a scene in which Jean's tombstone exploded in fire to hint a future return, but it was never shot.

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