X-Men Movies Almost Recast Wolverine With Tom Hardy

If X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn had gotten his way, Wolverine’s legacy on the big screen would look much different. Literally. Vaughn, who originally intended to continue with the X-Men franchise behind his First Class efforts, wanted to see another actor play Logan, the character embodied by Hugh Jackman for nearly a decade. As the story goes, Vaughn wanted Tom Hardy in the role. Vaughn is currently promoting his Elton John biopic Rocketman, which opens in theaters this weekend. In an interviewing promoting Paramount’s film, Vaughn revealed that the idea was to have Hardy step into the big screen role of Wolverine as a younger version of the character.

“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 told 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. 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.”

All of this, the rejection of Vaughn’s advice, is apparently why the director stepped away from the X-Men franchise. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue, because they didn’t listen to me,” Vaughn explained. “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?”

Still, Fox did find success with one more outing for Wolverine in the form of the successful, R-rated Logan movie. It turned out to be Jackman’s last time playing the role.

Rocketman hits theaters this weekend. X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens in theaters on June 7.