While The Wolverine was advertised as standing on its own, far away from the X-Men Trilogy that many fans were disappointed by, the connections to the previous films were definitely felt. Obviously there was Hugh Jackman playing Logan across all the films, but Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey was also prevalent, with Wolverine having nightmares about when he killed her. It turns out another character Logan was close to in the trilogy was in an early draft of the script for The Wolverine too. That version featured the return of Anna Paquin’s Rogue.
In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, The Wolverine co-writer Mark Bomback talked about the draft of the script that included Rogue and the reason why she was eventually cut.
Check out his quote below.
“Eventually it became very goofy, and I threw it out because I started realizing throughout the script that it became more problematic than cool. It’s no accident to me that in the firstX-Men film the first two mutants that you really see who have a connection are Wolverine and Rogue. There’s something special between them, so I was trying to bring Rogue into it, but it just didn’t get there. I regretted there wasn’t a way to figure it out, but when I look at the film now, it would have stuck out if we tried to shoehorn her in there just because it was another character from the universe.”
I think leaving Rogue out of the film was probably for the better. Part of The Wolverine‘s strength is that it isn’t overloaded with mutants. In the X-Men Trilogy it was cool that we got to see all the various mutant powers, but the majority of the mutants didn’t add anything to the plot. In The Wolverine, every mutant we see brings something to the table in terms of the story, and the relatively few we see make it all the more striking when we do meet one.
Fortunately for fans who are disappointed about not seeing Rogue in The Wolverine, she’ll appear in X-Men: Days Of Future Past, and it’s rumored that she plays a very significant role. That film is going to feature stars of both the original trilogy and X-Men: First Class as the two timelines come together in a time traveling storyline.
Tell us, are you disappointed Rogue was cut out of The Wolverine or do you think the film was better off with less mutants? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.