On the canceled extended version of "X-Men" (2000)

In 2003, we almost got "X-Men 1.5" to prepare us for "X2"

Dec 24, 2024

With X-Mas Eve upon us, what better time is there to talk about the X-Men movies? In this short article, I will delve into the history of a planned longer cut of the first installment of the former FOX franchise that was sadly scrapped before completion. I will also include some additional notes I had about the film following a rewatch.

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Disney. Downloaded from CoverCentury. Slightly modified by author.

Table of Contents

1. The Lost Version

2. From the Script

3. Inferences

4. Reused Concepts

5. Additional Thoughts on the Film

The Lost Version

When X-Men first premiered on DVD in November 2000, home video enthusiasts were somewhat disappointed that the film did not receive an elaborate special edition loaded with bonus materials. For sure, the initial release did feature some special features, including an “extended branching version”* that allowed one to watch the film with six reincorporated deleted scenes, but it was a far cry from the sorts of elaborate sets that the DVD format was becoming popular for.

*This worked in the style of the “Follow the White Rabbit” feature on The Matrix DVD: the user clicks on an emblem that pops up during the movie, taking one to the extra scene.

In February 2003, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a new 2-disc edition DVD loaded with new supplements called X-Men 1.5 to help promote the release of the sequel X2: X-Men United, which would come out later that Summer.

Between conception and release, however, X-Men 1.5 underwent a slight downgrade. Originally, the title of the release was meant to designate a new cut of the film that would’ve featured two new scenes shot during the production of the sequel.*

*This is reminiscent of how John Carpenter shot about 10-11 minutes of additional footage for his film Halloween (1978) during production of the sequel Halloween 2 (1981, dir. Rick Rosenthal) in order to extend the original film’s upcoming broadcast version, which became too short to fit into a two-hour time slot due to network censorship.

Director Bryan Singer first discussed the new cut in an interview for DVDFile.com linked to the April 2, 2002 release of The Usual Suspects special edition DVD. He at-tributed the initially light-on-features release of X-Men to a tight production schedule before revealing that an alternate cut was being prepared that would feature newly filmed footage, though he stressed that this would not really be a “director’s cut.”

DF: While I may be in the minority opinion, I'm not too sure how I feel about all these new extended or "Director's Cuts" coming about, largely helped by the success of DVD. Is that something you would consider doing for X-MEN?
BS: You might find something similar happening in this arena. There's room for changes. (smiles) I'm sure that will be another interview we'll have, and you can see all the artwork (points around room) for the new scenes we're shooting. But I hesitate calling it a "Director's Cut" because that term is a bit misused. They're very often not what the director originally intended, but I do agree if they are recuts supervised by the director, they should be called "Director's Cuts." If anyone else supervises them, they should be shot. And you can quote me on that.
Source: In the Director’s Chair - Bryan Singer, DVDFile.com; highlights in Singer’s response my own.

When the new DVD premiered, however, the alternate cut was absent, despite the title remaining X-Men 1.5. DVDFile.com editor Peter M. Bracke then interviewed produ-cer Rob Meyer Burnett, who revealed that the plan to shoot the new scenes, which would’ve been origin stories for the characters of Cyclops/Scott (James Marsden) and Storm/Ororo (Halle Berry), was apparently scrapped due to budget issues.

Alrighty, the big question first. It's supposed to be X-Men 1.5...but where's the .5? When I interviewed Bryan Singer early last year, there were apparently new scenes and a new cut of the film planned?
It was going to be called X-Men 1.5 at one time when they were going to do a new cut of the film. Frankly, I don't want to speak for Bryan, but I think he was pretty happy with the way the released film came out, and it made a huge amount of money.
What were the new scenes supposed to be?
The original plan was to shoot two extra scenes during the making of X2, which were going to be the origin of Storm and Cyclops, with them as children discovering their powers. But as I understand it, it was eventually decided that the money would be better spent on the production of X2. And if you look at the way the film is structured, with Wolverine and Rogue introduced at the beginning and both coming full circle within the film, it wouldn't really have made sense to focus on Storm and Cyclops as well. So while personally I thought it was a neat idea, I didn't think it would have added anything to the film.
Source: (Re)making X-Men 1.5 with producer Rob Meyer Burnett, February 10, 2003 by Peter M. Bracke, DVDFile.com]; highlights in response are my own.

Bracke additionally asked if Singer was unhappy about the absence of the new cut. Burnett responded:

“I don't want to speak for him, but I think Bryan wished that there could have been more money put into the DVD, including the added scenes shot for a 1.5 version. I think if Bryan had more time to work the film during its original post production process, it would be a different film. As it is, X-MEN is clearly one of the most successful comic book adaptations. But I do know he's happy with the amount of material that is on the disc.”

Budget issues, from what I understand, were pretty common for the X-movies. The budget of X-Men was slashed shortly before production, so it’s not hard to see something similar happening to the 1.5 Cut. I wouldn’t be surprised if Singer was informed by an exec that ultimately any money spent on the new material for X-Men would have to be removed from the actual production budget of X2.

It’s safe to say that, due to the depiction of mutant powers, the Storm and Cyclops origin scenes would require extensive FX work and so could be costly to produce.

But what would the scenes themselves have actually entailed?

From the Script

The only truly detailed source of information I’ve been able to find on the subject is a script draft for X-Men dated Feb 15, 1999, about 7 months before it would commence filming. The opening sequence is similar to, yet different from the final film in some details, showing Magneto’s origin in 1943 Nazi-occupied Poland.

However, rather than jump to the present-day (aka the ‘not too distant future’), the script instead cuts to a savannah in “KENYA - 1972,” where a group of kids play tag.

The scene comes to focuses on:

“One girl in particular. A PRETTY GIRL OF 12, is tagged and immediately shunned.” (4)

Though not named in these pages, which are completely bereft of dialogue, the girl is clearly a young Storm. As the game progresses, the other kids begin to cruelly taunt and bully Storm, with her ending up surrounded in a circle. They start throwing stones at her, with the scene suggesting a horror similar to the Magneto origin.

Storm’s powers activate but she is unable to control them.

The children don’t immediately notice that it inexplicably starts snowing out of the cloudless sky. Soon, adults arrive from a village and everyone is amazed at the snow. But then, the snow is replaced by HAIL and the hail increases in size, to the point that the pellets become like bricks. Here’s an excerpt of how the scene ends:

"The girl drops to the ground and covers her head as hailstones the size of coffee cans plow into the Earth as well as the weaker shacks of grass and mud. Before long, they hew a path of destruction that devastates the village. And all along the girl sits huddled in the dust, crying. 

As hailstones fall in a circle around her, never coming closer than ten feet or so." (5)

Where this sequence seemed like an ambitious silent film, the next one is much more traditional. We cut to a school gymnasium on prom night in “SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - 1986.” The camera leads us to a Boys’ Bathroom, where we find a teenager sitting in pain on a toilet with his head in his hands.

The script explicitly identifies him as “SCOTT SUMMERS - AGE 17.” (6) He talks to his friend, a Freckled Kid about how his eyes hurt. From outside in the gymnasium, we see a bright flash of light. Back in the bathroom, it’s revealed that Scott has made:

“A SMOKING, MOLTEN HOLE in the stall door, framing Scott's face perfectly.” (6)

It is only after this scene with the teenage Cyclops that we go into the Senate Hearing scene set in the present day, with Jean Grey and Senator Kelly.

If you like this article so far, please subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

Inferences

We can infer from all this that these scenes were planned before the original production of X-Men but were cut at the script level due to budget or scheduling issues. Singer apparently saw the X2 production as an opportunity to go back and reinstate these scenes into the first movie, implying he really wanted them in the original film from the outset. But again, the plan for them fell apart.

Now, it is likely that these were not going to be the exact sequences that would’ve been filmed during the making of X2. The script pages I’ve cited are not from the final shooting draft and it is almost certain that they would’ve been at least slightly revised following the release of the first movie due to the time gap between the productions of X-Men and X2.* However, I doubt that they would have been considerably different.

*I’m also curious as to where exactly Singer wanted to place them. It would make sense to have them appear chronologically prior to the Senate Hearing scene, but 1999 draft doesn’t include Rogue’s introduction scene. With the new sequences, this would make for 4 origin scenes in a row, which would be a bit too much upfront. Hence, I wonder if the Storm and Cyclops origins would’ve been positioned as flashbacks later in the extended cut.

I recall Singer discussing at one point, perhaps on the commentary track for either X-Men or X2, that Cyclops’ powers would’ve manifested in a bathroom and the set for it had been constructed but then reused for a different sequence (possibly the Mystique/Lorio scene in X2, but I don’t remember for certain).

This means the final Scott sequence would’ve been very close to what is described in the Feb 1999 draft, which in turns suggests the Storm sequence would’ve been as well.

In my opinion, though the sequences aren’t absolutely necessary to the movie, they certainly give a better idea of the traumas that shaped both Cyclops and Storm. Additionally, they provide a more clearly defined timeline for the events of X-Men. And, just going by the script, the Storm sequence could’ve been a visual standout on par with the Magneto opening. So, it’s a shame that they - and the 1.5 extended cut - were scrapped. At the very least, they would’ve made for an excellent bonus feature.

Reused Concepts

Screencaps: Kid Storm and Teen Cyclops in 'X-Men Origins.' Images courtesy of Disney.

Interestingly, later X-Men movies would revisit both of these unused concepts.

The prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) incorporated both characters retroactively into Wolverine’s backstory. Kid Storm had a cameo during the 1979 sequence in Africa though her scene was (thankfully) excised from the theatrical release.

Meanwhile, the second half of the movie includes a whole subplot (which felt completely out of place) about a teenage Cyclops, who had already developed his power, being kidnapped from high school by the film’s villain Sabretooth.

X-Men Apocalypse (2016), set in an alternate 1983, would present a take similar to both the cut Cyclops origin from X-Men and his first appearance in X-Men Origins. While in class, the teenage Scott asks to go to the bathroom as his eyes hurt. As he sits in a stall, he unleashes a beam of energy from his eyes for the first time, blowing away the door and another student who had hoped to beat him up.

As Apocalypse was also directed by Bryan Singer, one can infer that he had long intended to do the Cyclops origin scene and got his chance over 15 years later.

Additional Thoughts on the film

I love the tone of this movie. Very consistent and barely a hint of the 'wink-wink, hah-hah' stuff that is emblematic of Marvel. I mean, sure, there is that line about 'yellow spandex' later on, but it's the rare exception. In hindsight, I’m happy Joss Whedon’s contributions to the script were minimized.
I really like in hindsight how they take their time building to the reveal of Wolverine. He's not supposed to be THE main character of this movie. Like, it's a team-effort picture and he's introduced as maybe the fifth regular in an ensemble. Watching this though, you can tell Jackman was destined to become a star. Like, he dominates every scene he's in, for better or for worse. His Logan really feels like an animal that gradually becomes humanized.
So, why does Magneto do that metronome-like thing with the iron balls swinging back and forth sans string in his office? I don't know but I always loved the detail of them falling off the moment he leaves.
I wonder why all the Brotherhood members aside from Magneto were basically strong but silent background heavies. Like, each of them has maybe one line of dialogue. Did this help cut down on the budget - so they wouldn't have to hire A-list stars for these roles?
It’s sad that we never got more deleted footage on DVD. In 2021, Hugh Jackman claimed that the film lost 47 minutes shortly before release, which aligns with early reports that there was over half-an-hour cut from it.
I remember seeing a deleted scene in the bts docs, where Kelly tells Magneto about his having the best intentions and Magneto gets furious and retorts that it's only a matter of time before mutants are taken to camps and studied for weaknesses. I kinda wish that scene had remained in the movie, because it was a great showcase for McKellen, and it made it pretty clear that Magneto sees the mutant registration act as a precursor to mutants becoming treated as the Jews were in WW2.
I appreciate how small scale this movie is, how quiet it is, how it has a tight economical plot with scenes that are allowed to breathe. Even the first sequel would overload itself with incident and jokes, leading to some pretty weird tonal whiplash. In part, I suspect this is attributable to the fact that this was more of a mid-budget movie. Consider how small-scale Magneto's threat is. He doesn't even want to kill any humans in this case, but to convert them to his cause. Even if you consider that his act could possibly kill everyone in NYC, it's still not a world-ending attack.
There’s setup at the end here that doesn’t call attention to itself: Jean’s reaction to Magneto’s radiation was clearly meant to be setup for her transformation into Phoenix later in the series, the idea being that it’s a secondary mutation. I was really sad when it got retconned in X3.
I used to think poorly of Halle Berry’s initial decision to not come back to X3. But given all the stuff that came out later about Singer’s abusive and unprofessional behavior on the X-Men and X2 sets, it made a LOT of sense why she’d come back only after he dropped out and was replaced by Brett Rattner.

But what about you?

Would you like to have seen the extended 1.5 cut of X-Men? Or was it a good idea to leave the Storm and Cyclops origins scenes on the cutting room floor? Is there a deleted scene you wish the film had kept in? Any other thoughts on the film?

Textual Variations

Discussion about this post