Hugh Jackman Addresses The X-Men Movies Legacy After Bryan Singer Controversy

Hugh Jackman is speaking up and addressing the “complicated question” of the X-Men movies’ legacy, and the franchise’s indelible connection to writer/director Bryan Singer. Singer’s X-Men was a groundbreaking film when it was released in 2000, ushering in the era of blockbuster superhero movie franchises, and introducing the world to an Australian actor named Hugh Jackman, who emerged from obscurity to nab the coveted role of Wolverine. 

However, in the years since Fox’s X-Men Movie Universe ended its run (set to be rebooted within Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise), more and more scandalous reports about Singer’s presence in the franchise have leaked out into the public eye. 

For his part, Hugh Jackman has largely been silent about what happened on (or off) set during the years of making X-Men movies. However, in a new interview, Jackman is directly confronted with what the X-Men Movies legacy looks like today, and was asked how he feels about it: 

“You know, that’s a really, really complicated question,” Jackman told The Guardian. “X-Men was the turning point, I believe, in terms of comic-book movies and I think there’s a lot to be proud of. And there’s certainly questions to be asked and I think they should be asked. But I guess I don’t know how to elegantly answer that. I think it’s complex and ultimately I look back with pride at what we’ve achieved and what momentum that started.”

As for Bryan Singer: the filmmaker was alleged to have been a wild man on the set of X-Men, engaging in everything from the verbal and emotional abuse of the cast and crew to sexual abuse of a young man while working on the film. The experience of making the first X-Men movie was apparently so bad that the cast threatened to quit before the sequel if Singer wasn’t curtailed, and producer Lauren Schuler Donner ultimately tasked her then-assistant Kevin Feige with babysitting Singer during production. 

Lauren Schuler Donner has since admitted that 20th Century Fox didn’t step in as it should have with Singe: “It’s a weird business, the film business,” Shuler Donner once told THR “We honor creativity and talent and we forgive the brilliant ones. Unconsciously, we probably do enable them by turning a blind eye to whatever they’re doing and taking their product and putting it out to the world.”

Well, for his part, Hugh Jackman reminds everyone that this was his first big film, and therefore he had a lot yet to learn about what should and should not happen in Hollywood: 

“This was my first movie in America, you gotta understand; it was all so new to me. I think it’s fair to say that…There are some stories, you know…I think there are some ways of being on set that would not happen now. And I think that things have changed for the better.”

Hugh Jackman will get a new chance to relaunch the X-Men as a movie franchise – this time working for Kevin Feige. Jackman will reprise his role of Wolverine and star alongside buddy Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 3 in 2024.