The release of Dark Phoenix next week will mark the conclusion of the 20th Century Fox iteration of the X-Men series as we know it. As part of their merger, Disney will take control of the franchise, and likely inject some new blood by recasting most, if not all the main characters.
With the current cast staring down the possibility of being replaced, X-Men: First Class director and writer Matthew Vaughn recently revealed that he threw out the idea of recasting the role of Wolverine, previously played by Hugh Jackman, with Tom Hardy after he completed the script for X-Men: Days of Future Past.
"When I finished the Days of Future Past script with it ready to go I looked at it and said, 'I really think it would be fun to cast Tom Hardy or someone as the young Wolverine and then bring it all together at the end,'" Vaughn explained to ComingSoon. "Fox read Days of Future Past and went 'Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!' And I said, 'Well what do you do next? Trust me you’ve got nowhere to go.'"
"Then they did 'Apocalypse' and it’s like… If you flip that ’round even it would have been better," Vaughn continued. "Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing. Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash." It's worth pointing out that in-between First Class and Days of Future Past, The Wolverine was released, but it wasn't quite the plot that Vaughn had envisioned.
"That’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue, because they didn’t listen to me," Vaughn recalls. "My plan was First Class, then second film was new young Wolverine in the 70’s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men. So you’d really get to know all of them, and my finale was gonna be Days of Future Past. That was gonna be my number three where you bring them all… because what’s bigger than bringing in McKellen and Michael and Stewart and James and bringing them all together?"
Back in 2015, following the release of Days of Future Past, Jackman even suggested Hardy as a replacement in a Wolverine reboot. Coincidence?
