X-Men: The Last Stand has become notorious for being one of the weakest films in the franchise due to its messy exploration of the infamous Dark Phoenix storyline and other elements that did not live up to the quality of its predecessors.
Brett Ratner took over the directing duty for the third film since Bryan Singer, who helmed the first two films, did not return due to his involvement in Superman Returns.
However, Matthew Vaughn, who'll end up helming First Class years later, was originally set to direct the film, but he abruptly left the project while in pre-production. During that time, no exact reason was stated for his exit.
Now, seventeen years after the film was released, Vaughn has finally set the record straight surrounding his exit from the project and it involves an incident surrounding Halle Berry's return.
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Matthew Vaughn Opens Up About His Infamous Exit from X-Men: The Last Stand
In his recent appearance at a panel at New York Comic-Con (via The Hollywood Reporter), Vaughn opened up about his initial involvement in X-Men: The Last Stand prior to his exit.
"I went into one of the executive’s office and I saw an X3 script, and I immediately knew it was a lot fatter. I was like what the hell is this draft. He went, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m the director. I’m worrying about this draft,'" he said.
"He wouldn’t tell me, so I grabbed it literally — it was like a crazy moment — opened the first page, and it said, ‘Africa. Storm. Kids dying of no water. She creates a thunderstorm and saves all these children.'"
Vaughn revealed that his decision to leave the project came after he learned that a misleading script was sent to Halle Berry that tricks her into signing up for the film.
"[I went,] ‘What is this?’ [They said,] ‘Oh, it’s Halle Berry’s script. I went, ‘OK, because she hasn’t signed up yet.’ ‘But this is what she wants it to be, and once she signs up, we’ll throw it in the bin,'" he said recounting what the executive told him.
"I was like, ‘Wow, you’re gonna do that to an Oscar-winning actress who plays Storm? I’m outta here.’ So I quit at that point."
It sounded like Vaughn didn't like the process, especially how the Fox executive was trying to trick Berry into signing up to return with a script that has a cool Storm scene that will end up being removed after the ink was put into paper.
It is such an unfortunate story since it is an example of a Hollywood practice that is jarring to hear and all we can hope is that situations like that no longer happen today since it is unfair to the actors such as Berry in this situation.
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