With the 20th anniversary of the release of the very first X-Men movie coming up later this month, it’s time to reflect on w🐬hat this original franchise did for the super hero movie genre and also🍃 .
The trail that the X-Men movies blazed is still burning today. Not only did the 2000 X-Men give us Hugh Jackman 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:as Wolverine and Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier, it set the tone for how super hero movies should be. It’s the Rosetta Stone for the genre and the predecessor to all, from every reboot of Spider-Man to the whole of the MCU. It brought to life Stan Lee and J🅺ack Kirby’s allegory for the plight of the LGBTQ+ community and exposed so many to the wide universe of these characters. But it wasn’t all good and dandy during production. In the years since its 💖release, the director, Bryan Singer, has come under serious fire for his behavior on and off set.
Despite what the film means to nerds everywhere, events surrounding the first movie – both over the course of creating X-Men and since production wrapped – have marred the legacy of this franchise. Before even beginning work on this particular project, Singer had been named in a civil lawsuit filed by two minors who claimed they had been ordered to strip naked for an audition for Apt Pupil. This predatory behavior is rumored to have spread to the X-Men casting couch, as several minors have come forward stating that they were offered auditions for sexual favors. Singer’s problematic behavior extended to the company he kept on set as well, as the friends he regularly invited to set contributed to the hostile work env🌟ironment. The original actor for Pyro, Alex Burton, filed a civil suit against Marc Collins-Rector, Chad Shackley, and Brock Pierce – all friends and associates 🌳of Singer’s – stating that the three men had drugged and sexually assaulted him during production of the first film.
Singer developed a notorious diva attitude and would often miss days on set, throw fits at actors and staff, and make calls that would lead to actor injury and the eventual threat of several principle actors quitting. During X2, producer Tom DeSanto and Singer butted heads over Singer’s drug use on one particular day; the director and some members of the crew were clearly high and incapacitated. DeSanto feared for the safety of the cast during the filming of a stunt where no supervisor was present, but Singer blazed ahead anyway and Jackman’s blood was drawn. At one point DeSanto attempted to halt production of X2, but when the studio decided to override this decision, a huge part of the acting cast threatened to go if DeSanto did🎶.
It seems that not even the writers room was safe from the drama. There was a huge controversy over who-wrote-what when it came to the final script. Ed Solomon and Christopher McQuarrie made claims that the brunt of the work for X-Men was the♏irs, while others say that David Hayter, who was working as Singer’s assistant at the time, did it all on his own. Solomon and McQuarrie attempted to take action against the studio to have their names removed from the film completely for this switcheroo and the arduous process inside the writers’ room.
Singer’s adaptation of X-Men has sparked incredible spin-offs like Logan — and of course a few tragic stinkers like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dark Phoenix and168澳洲幸运5开奖网: X-Men: Apocalypse — but greatness behind ﷺthe camera can no longer excuse monstrous behavior. In a post Me Too and Times Up Hollywood world, it is important for all of us, consumers and studio, to hold creators accountable.
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