2000’s X-Men has just turned twenty. The movie set the template for the modern superhero pic by staying close to the original comic books, bringing together a highly regarded ensemble cast and featuring a witty and fast-paced script. Several events have already marked the film’s 20th birthday, including a Zoom call reuniting the cast (albeit crashed by Ryan Reynolds), but there’s also a dark side to all this, laid out in a new article by The Hollywood Reporter.
It exposes director Bryan Singer’s bad behavior on the set of both X-Men and X2: X-Men United. The most serious allegation is that Singer offered young men auditions and roles in X-Men in exchange for sex, with questions raised over the unknown Alex Burton being cast as Pyro. But even beyond that, there’s a litany of examples of Singer’s erratic direction, including “late arrivals to the set, mood swings and explosive tantrums.”
One of the most serious happened on the X2 set when the cast threatened to walk out after Hugh Jackman was left bleeding from an unplanned stunt that was shot while Singer was under the effects of an incapacitating narcotic.
At one point during the making of the original film, though, producer Shuler Donner was getting so worried that she dispatched one of her best executives to keep an eye on the director: future Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. Whenever Feige has spoken about his time working on X-Men, it’s usually sounded pretty rosy. As a lifelong superhero fan, he was pleased to be able to provide some input to the actors, with Hugh Jackman revealing that Feige used to slip classic Wolverine comics under his door. But who knows what else he was reporting back?
Though some details of what really happened on Bryan Singer’s sets are beginning to leak out, I doubt we’ll ever get the full picture of what went down on the X-Men movies. Whatever the case, Singer is now effectively persona non grata in Hollywood. But does all the controversy and allegations around him affect the films’ reputations? X-Men producer Ralph Winter certainly doesn’t think so, saying:
“I think X-Men will stand the test of time. And hopefully Bryan will survive some way in his career and his work as a filmmaker and artist. But I don’t find the movie tainted in any way because of whatever all the other current events are about Bryan. To me, that stuff doesn’t matter.”
Do you agree with him, though? Let us know in the comments.