Hugh Jackman's The Wolverine Initially Had A Much Larger Role In X-Men: Apocalypse

While commercials for X-Men: Apocalypse spoiled a surprise appearance by Hugh Jackman's popular character Wolverine, early drafts of the script had the clawed Canadian with a much bigger role in the X-Men movie. In an interview with CinemaBlend, producer Simon Kinberg explained that Wolverine originally trained the new generation of X-Men for combat. "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," said Kinberg.

However, that plan was scrapped as it interfered with the story arc for Jennifer Lawrence's character Mystique, who has become a central figure in the X-Men movie franchise over the last three movies. "We felt like that stepped on [Lawrence's] role in the movie and becoming their leader," Kinberg said.

In the end, producers settled on the X-Men revisiting Alkali Lake, the home of the Weapon X project in the movies. A berserk Wolverine helped Cyclops, Jean Grey and Nightcrawler free their fellow X-Men from the Weapon X facility in a scene seemingly ripped right out of early 1990s comics.

Jackman is currently filming a new Wolverine movie, which will be his final appearance as the iconic Marvel mutant.

(via CinemaBlend)