Why Wolverine’s Bigger Role in X-Men: Apocalypse Was Changed

Warning: This article contains spoilers forX-Men: Apocalypse.You have been warned.

There hasn't been an X-Men film without the appearance of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, and X-Men: Apocalypse didn't change that tradition. However, it seems that the fan-favorite character's original, bigger role in the film was changed to a minor role and appearance due to one reason – Wolverine stealing the spotlight from Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, we saw a fantastic glimpse of what Wolverine is like as Weapon X. Director Bryan Singer already teased a "truly Weapon X" version of Jackman's character earlier this month. And true enough, the clawed mutant appeared in the film's biggest action sequences, menacingly killing off a lot of Striker's men leaving a trail of corpses and blood mess. Apparently though, Wolverine was originally planned to be the young mutants' trainer, but the Weapon X version became the better choice.

In an interview with Cinema Blend during the movie's press day in London earlier this month, producer X-Men writer/producer Simon Kinberg revealed the major Wolverine decision. He said:

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.

Since Singer and Kinberg needed the character to get in on some of the action, they came up with putting him in the scene following the main characters' abduction. Kinberg explained further:

As we were, again, conceptually brainstorming the script, we knew that the kids were going to be abducted, or that a lot of our main characters were going to be abducted and taken somewhere. So we thought it would be interesting to take them to Alkali Lake, and that they would naturally, potentially… that the Weapon X program would be there, and maybe that was a place to find Wolverine.

Though I would have liked to see Wolverine training the young X-Men, featuring him as Weapon X made more sense, and I have to say is more bad-ass. It also seems a better choice since news of an R-rated Wolverine 3 has been received well. We're just given a taste of what's to come for Hugh Jackman's last big screen appearance as the character, and I'm excited how Wolverine 3 will make of the clawed mutant.

Do you think Wolverine's appearance in X-Men: Apocalypse is better than Kinberg and Singer's original plan?

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