A lot of X-Men fans were left perplexed at the end of last summer’s The Wolverine when the titular mutant (Hugh Jackman) ended up declawed, thanks to the energized adamantium sword of his opponent, the Silver Samurai. After all, metal claws have been an essential part of the character since the first X-Men way back in 2000. Luckily, it doesn’t appear that Logan will be sporting his current bone claws for too long in this summer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.
According to director Bryan Singer, the same man who helmed the first two X-Men movies and Superman Returns, the adamantium claws may be reintroduced in Days of Future Past. Speaking with Empire during the magazine’s extensive spread on the likely blockbuster, Singer dropped a pretty serious tease:
Director Bryan Singer explains that Magneto’s ability to manipulate metal might have something to do with it. The Master Of Magnetism could, perhaps, “reconstitute the adamantium claws… [Wolverine] has a different relationship with Magneto, and perhaps Magneto could forge them.”
Hopefully, this won’t be a quick fix situation that happens off-screen or right at the beginning of the film, given how painful the initial Weapon X procedure Logan underwent to get his adamantium exoskeleton in the first place actually was. Singer has experience with the characters, so I have some confidence that he won’t take the easy (read: lame) way out, despite the fact that Days of Future Past has an awful lot of set-up to get through.
The film will focus on Wolverine after his consciousness is sent back in time to his younger self by Professor X in hopes of preventing a dystopian future. Teaming with some of the same younger X-Men that audiences met in X-Men: First Class, Wolverine sets out to prevent a future in which massive robots called Sentinels have hunted mutants to the brink of extinction.
With all of the film’s time-travelling hijinks, it’s completely understandable that Singer doesn’t feel he has enough screen time to do right by every character who has so far featured into the X-Men cinematic universe. Most notably, Anna Paquin’s Rogue was cut from the film during post-production. Singer previously stated that:
Unfortunately, [the scene we cut] was the one and only sequence Anna Paquin was in, the Rogue character was in. Even though she’s in the materials and part of the process of making the film, she won’t appear in it.
However, when speaking with Empire during their coverage of the film, Singer and writer Simon Kinberg told a slightly different story. After Kinberg stated that, “[Rogue’s big scene] was one real sequence in the movie. We felt like it was taking tension out of the main story drive,” Singer clarified that:
It does not mean that we won’t see her in the film. Also, I hope to make the sequence available on the DVD as she was quite wonderful in it. She is an important part of the X-Men family. I ‘m very pleased she will remain as one of Empire’s anniversary covers.
Rogue was a major character in the first X-Men installment, acting as the audience’s entrance point into the action-packed world of students at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, but she became less of a major player as the series progressed. Though Paquin was featured on one of Empire’s 25 Days of Future Past promotional covers, it’s clear that she won’t be a huge part of the film.
What do you make of this news? Are you glad that Wolverine will be getting his shiny metal claws back? And are you happy to see that Rogue may appear on screen, even in a small role, in Days of Future Past? Let us know in the comments section!
X-Men: Days of Future Past will arrive on May 31, 2014.