At a New York Comic Con spotlight panel, Kingsman and Argylle director Matthew Vaughn explained why he quit working on X-Men: The Last Stand in 2005. The English director was forthright and admitted to behind-the-scenes Hollywood shenanigans. While in a studio executive’s office, Matthew Vaughn recounted seeing a script that piqued his interest and admitted that the incident had to do with Halle Berry.
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As stated by The Hollywood Reporter, Vaughn said, “One of the reasons I quit X3, and it was a true story and I don’t care if I’m not meant to say it, but Hollywood is really political in an odd way. I went into one of the executive’s offices and I saw an X3 script, and I immediately knew that it was a lot fatter. I was like, ‘What the hell is this?” The executive replied, “Oh, don’t worry about it, and I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m the director. I’m worrying about this draft.” Vaughn continued, “He wouldn’t tell me, so I grabbed, I literally – it was like a crazy moment – I opened the first page and it said, ‘Africa. Storm. Kids dying of no water. She creates a thunderstorm and saves all the children.”
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Vaughn thought the ideas were excellent, but to his dismay, he soon learnt it was all a fabrication. Vaughn asked, “What is this?’ and the exec said, ‘Oh, it’s Halle Berry’s script’. I went, ‘OK because she hasn’t signed up yet.” In response to Vaugh’s remark, the studio exec said the script, ‘is what she wants it to be, and once she signs up, we’ll throw it in the bin.” In reply to the executive, Vaughn said, “Wow, you’re gonna do that to an Oscar-winning actress who plays Storm? I’m outta here.’ So, I quit at that point.”
Vaughn replaced Bryan Singer as director of X3 when Singer chose to helm Superman Returns instead. After Vaughn quit the X3 project, he was replaced by Brett Ratner, director of the Rush Hour franchise. Vaughn also mentioned that Hollywood approached him to direct a big film like X-Men: The Last Stand after the success of his smaller-budget film Layer Cake. The director was very excited to be offered such a big project. Still, looking back on the experience, he said, “I was naïve.” The Kick-Ass director also confessed that after quitting X3, he was given the ‘you’ll never work in this town again’ speech. Still, all was forgiven after the director’s success with Kick-Ass. Soon after, Vaughn was recruited to write and direct X-Men: First Class, eventually writing and producing X-Men: Days of Future Past.
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