Matthew Vaughn Quit X-Men 3 After Fake Script Was Written to Trick Halle Berry

At one point, Matthew Vaughn was set to direct X-Men: The Last Stand, the end cap to 20th Century’s first live-action series based on the classic Marvel property. As the director has now revealed, he decided to leave the project because of how the studio wanted to treat one of the film’s leads. During a spotlight panel at New York Comic Con, Vaugn revealed one studio executive had sent Halle Berry a fake script with sensitive matter included as a way to coax the star into agreeing to appear.

“One of the main reasons I actually 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 executives office and I saw an X3 script and I immediately knew that it was a lot fatter. I was like, ‘What the hell’s this? This draft?’ Oh, don’t worry about it. Like no, no, I’m the director,” Vaughn said during the panel. “I’m worrying about this draft. Tell me what it is. Wouldn’t tell me, so I grabbed it from him. It was like a crazy moment, but I grabbed it. Open the first page and it said Africa, Storm. kids dying have no water, she creates a thunderstorm and saves all these children. Okay, it’s pretty cool idea.”

That’s when Vaughn said the executive pointed out the scene was only included to get Berry to agree to appear in the flick, and the studio wanted to axe the moment after Berry signed her contract.

“They said it was the ‘The Halle Berry script,’ because she hasn’t signed up yet. But once she gets what she wants it to be and she signs up, we’ll throw it in the bin,” the filmmaker added. “And I was like, ‘Wow, you’re going to do that to an Oscar winning actress who plays Storm? I’m out of here. So I quit.”

Even though he ended up not directing X-Men: The Last Stand, Vaughn would go on to work for 20th Century Fox on X-Men: First Class, the first film in the studio’s second trilogy.

Marvel’s X-Men reboot has yet to set a release date. Most of Fox’s X-Men movies can now be seen streaming on Disney+.