It is no secret by now, Wolverine’s role in X-Men: Apocalypse shows off his adamantium rage after he is turned into Weapon X, making short work of a slew of guards. We got to see glimpses of the famous rage in X2, but this scene is awesome, and features a ton of easter eggs for the careful eye. In an interview with Cinemablend, Simon Kinberg said that Wolverines role was initially going to be a lot larger, and would feature the hero leading the young X-Men into battle against Apocalypse:
There was always a notion that we wanted Wolverine to be in the movie. We wanted to find a way to feature him in the film, partly because Bryan [Singer] and I love Hugh [Jackman] so much. We love the character, obviously, and he’s such a huge part of the franchise. There were a lot of iterations of how Wolverine would enter and exit the movie. There was a version when he was going to come in at the midpoint of the film and be like the drill sergeant for the kids and take over as their leader. And we felt like that stepped on Jen’s role in the movie and becoming their leader.
These were the first thoughts of the writing team, but after thinking about the focus of the film, they gave the leadership position to Jennifer Lawrence. This allowed Mystique to have a beautiful swan song, and leave the franchise in style. Having Wolverine lead the team, would have drastically cut down Mystique’s role in the film, and would have really made her role redundant. Previous announcements have stated that Jennifer Lawrence would be leaving the franchise after X-Men: Apocalypse, but Twentieth Century Fox appears to have paid a large sum of money to keep the actress in the franchise for more films.
This would also suggest that the X-Men films will likely feature Mystique in future films, since Hugh Jackman has stated that he will be done with the role after Wolverine 3. The deal Jennifer Lawrence signed stated that she would only return if the returns of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were secured. The film would have felt a lot different with Wolverine having a larger role. It is interesting to think of how the film would have ended up, but we are left with only assumptions.
Hugh Jackman will return as Wolverine in Wolverine 3, hitting theaters on 3 March 2017.
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