X3 - X-Men: The Last Straw

[Raikus]

Finally got it over with. So many bad parts. So few decent parts. So many changes that didn't need to be made.

SPOILERS even though I shouldn't have to say it

The Good:
-Beast fighting with the acrobatic wrecking ball technique
-The introduction, and consequently possession, of Proteus -- Charles and Moira's son (at least that's how it appeared to me)
-Colossus stealing Professor X's TV after his death

The Bad (specifically, instead of generally the entire movie):
-The changing of mutants powers, sex and other dumb shit (Juggernaut isn't a mutant. Callisto can't run fast. Marrow was a chick, not some beefcake with no neck. Evidently all of Magneto's "pawns" had the mutant ability to jump really high)
-Every line from Storm, specifically the "No, because there's nothing to cure" junk
-Beast's face
-Evidently the idea that class # mutants needs a syringe per class (i.e. Magneto being a Class 4 and needing Beast to shove all four into him).
-What? No one can pick up one of the THOUSANDS of cure darts and give it to Wolverine? Pst, Wolvie, put the darts between your fingers and act like they're your claws.
-Whatever the fuck the clap lady was.
-Introducing a sucky bad character like the Porcipine or whatever the fuck he was who has to, y'know, hug you to kill you.

The questions/thoughts that came up while watching:
-Colossus must be gay
-Why don't they make the shirts out of the same material they make Wolverine's pants out of? Evidently they can stand up to Jean Gray's disentigration.
-Same thing with the metal Xavier's wheelchair is made out of. The infamous Black Box joke.
-Magneto can now control wood?
-So Iceman just killed a whole fuckton of Koy.
-Nothing stops the Juggernaut except for... walls? Evidently the helmut wasn't doing much. Gogo plaster!
-No one liked Cyclops much.

[MacGuffin]

X-Men 3 Producer Wins Award, Breaks It

In Hollywood, people win so many awards they apparently have trouble juggling them all. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men franchise; Constantine) was honored at the Women in Film Crystal and Lucy Awards on Tuesday night, and she accidentally dropped her made-of-crystal Crystal Award on the ground and broke it.

[Ravi]

Its not a real award anyways.

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Interview: SCREENWRITER SIMON KINBERG TALKS X-MEN: THE LAST STAND - PART 1
In part 1 of iF's exclusive interview Kinberg dispels myths about Sentinels and wishes he could've used Gambit
Source: iF Magazine 

Love it or hate it, call it a box office flop even though it broke records, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND has certainly made an impact at the box office and in the hearts of comic book fans everywhere.  One of the men directly responsible for that is screenwriter Simon Kinberg who together with his writing partner Zak Penn were with the project from the beginning. 

Kinberg chatted with iF to dispel rumors of an abandoned script, what it took to research the movie, and what X-MEN characters they want to include but didn't have room.

iF MAGAZINE: Were you brought in after one whole version of the film had been rejected?

SIMON KINBERG: No. Actually, Zak [Penn] and I were brought in separately.  Bryan Singer had left to do SUPERMAN and Bryan took his writers with him to work on SUPERMAN. They had talked with Fox about a general direction for X3, but they had never written an outline, and they had certainly never written a script.  Fox hired me about a month after Bryan left to start to write the script.  They wanted to start production in July of the following year.  I had seven or eight months to go from start to finish to have the script ready to go into production. I started writing for a couple months, and Fox did what many studios do now especially on these big tent-pole films, which is they hired another writer to write a separate simultaneous draft.  They had done that with FANTASTIC FOUR, and Warner Bros has done that on several of their superhero movies.  What happens 99 out of 100 times, is different writers write different drafts, and then another writer is hired to create a Frankenstein draft that combines all of the different and best elements of each separate draft.  That was the path we would have been on, but Zak and I, instead of competing and looking over our shoulders, contacted each other and decided to write the script together.  Given the short time frame, and the fact that both of us are collaborative guys, we had the same sort of sensibilities about this movie.  In January or February of last year Zak and I decided to join forces and become a proper writing team. We'd never met before, let alone worked together.

We started doing outlines and started writing a draft together and then in February of last year Matthew Vaughn was hired to be the director of the film.  We worked incredibly close with Matthew, and wrote a very fast sort of structural draft so they could budget and start prepping the movie.  The dialogue and nuances of it weren't there yet, but certainly the structure of it was.  We worked with him for three or four months, and then Matthew ended up leaving the movie for personal reasons in June or July.  The movie was hurtling towards production, and they needed a director to come in with about six to eight weeks of prep, and make the it work. 

Brett was one of the only directors that the cast felt strongly about, and who was willing to take on that very daunting challenge.

iF: There were rumors that there was a Sentinel script at the time, is that true?

KINBERG: There never was a Sentinel script that veered away from the story we ended up with.  I have no idea where the rumors came from, but it may have something to do with the Sentinel in the danger room.  It also might have something to do with the fact that there was an earlier draft of X-MEN 2 that had Sentinels in it.

iF: How much research did you do in the writing of the script?

KINBERG: I'm a huge X-MEN comic fan, and I grew up a huge X-MEN geek.  So, I had read the vast majority of the comics that were in my lifetime, and I was certainly familiar with the Phoenix Saga.  I went back and re-read the Phoenix comics in great detail.  Not just the [Chris] Claremont saga, but also the other incarnations of the Phoenix over the X-MEN's history.  We did a lot of that type of research, and Zak and I photocopied pages that we felt were especially relevant and posted them all over our office. The walls were literally wallpapered with pages of comics. 

iF: You also brought in elements of the most current X-MEN storylines like Joss Whedon's ASTONISHING X-MEN as well correct?

KINBERG: One thing that I knew going in was that it was going to be the Dark Phoenix story since Bryan had laid the groundwork for that in X2, but what we didn't know was what the other parallel stories would be.  I think everyone felt that one of the strengths of the first two X-MEN movies was that they had a number of parallel stories.  In many ways the Phoenix story is the emotional "A" plot of the film, but the political "A" plot of the film became about the cure.  That was actually a studio executive's idea.   One of them had read Joss Whedon's gifted run with the mutant cure in it and thought that would be an interesting quandary for the characters.  One thing that you'll find when you look online, is that whether fans do or don't like this movie (and the opinions are pretty wildly diverse as you can imagine), they certainly acknowledge that there is a lot of the comics represented in this movie.  I won't claim credit for anything good in the movie except Zak and I are the biggest X-MEN geeks that were anywhere around this film with the exception of Avi Arad.  Zak and I were certainly the ones on set everyday, who were fighting really hard to shoehorn everything into the movie that we loved about the books. 

iF: Was Alan Cumming in the original script as Nightcrawler?

KINBERG: I don't know if Alan backed out or whose decision that was.  There was a draft of the script where Nightcrawler had a cameo but not a big part.  I think the studio felt that either we should give Nightcrawler a major story since he was so well established in X2, or we would do sort of what the comics do, which is to move onto another story with a new set of characters knowing that Nightcrawler is out there in the X-Universe and can possibly return for some other X-MEN movie in the future.  Bryan did such an excellent job with Nightcrawler in X2 both in terms of representing his powers and giving him an emotional arc, that there wasn't much left to do with the character in X3.  It also felt like he might tread a little bit on the terrain of Beast; in terms of similarities in the characters and their political standpoints in terms of dealing with their mutancy.  We ended up jettisoning the character.

iF: Were there any other favorite characters that you wanted to use in X3 that you didn't get to use?

KINBERG: I think the one character we really wanted to find a way to include in the movie, and ultimately just couldn't find a way to do it, was Gambit.  We wrote a cameo for him, and then really felt like it was better to save Gambit and give him a major role in a future X-MEN movie, rather than give him a cameo where fans would be saying "that's all I get of Gambit?"  The plot that we chose for the story, felt like it was so good at introducing Beast and Angel, because of the department of mutant affairs and Warren Worthington the first being the creator of the cure.  It all felt very right and very resonate.  Finding a place for Gambit where he wasn't going to be just one of the team didn't come to us.  We didn't want to introduce a fan favorite character and not be able to do him justice.  There just wasn't enough space in this movie.

[sheshothim]

That actually makes me feel better about Gambit not being in it. It's like...my hatred has detracted by about one point.....out of a gillion.

[©brad]

why is jessica alba not only on a first-name basis w/ ratner but also congratulating him at the mtv movie awards? ("you did an awesome job brett!" she said). as if the general moronic 13-year old girl MTV audience is going to know who the hell brett ratner is. furthermore, why is the trailer currently #1 on imdb.com? (superman is #3!) why am i still hearing about x-men over and over at work? why can't this movie die? seriously, is this a conspiracy or somethin?

and so help me god kal, if you come in here talking about how ratner deserves praise for all the $$ the film is making or any other box office-related observation, i'm going to feed your balls to a coyote who's high on crystal meth. 

[pete]

I have no problems with making whatever correlation between the box office performance of a film and the quality of the film--I mean it all depends on the individual movie--sometimes I agree, like Titanic or ET or jurassic park, that the box office resembles the general public's reaction towards the film.  and there are films that I disagree with, but that's beside the point.  what I think is stupid is drawing a correlation based on the first weekend alone.  I mean, that's all advertising and packaging and hype and timing and things that really have nothing to do with the quality of the product--if people are purchasing the tickets even before any word of mouth.  122 million dollars does not mean 122 million dollars happily spent.  power gloves did not make millions of nintendo kids happy.  enron stocks did not improve the lives of the investors.

[Gamblour.]

I have no problems with making whatever correlation between the box office performance of a film and the quality of the film--I mean it all depends on the individual movie--sometimes I agree, like Titanic or ET or jurassic park, that the box office resembles the general public's reaction towards the film.  and there are films that I disagree with, but that's beside the point.  what I think is stupid is drawing a correlation based on the first weekend alone.  I mean, that's all advertising and packaging and hype and timing and things that really have nothing to do with the quality of the product--if people are purchasing the tickets even before any word of mouth.  122 million dollars does not mean 122 million dollars happily spent.  power gloves did not make millions of nintendo kids happy.  enron stocks did not improve the lives of the investors.

You're exactly right, but it's sad and dumb that this has to be explained...

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Interview: SCREENWRITER SIMON KINBERG TALKS X-MEN: THE LAST STAND - PART 2
Source: iF Magazine

Simon Kinberg, one of the two screenwriters on X-MEN: THE LAST STAND was faced with a daunting challenge for any comic book fan, how to translate your favorite stories from the comics into the medium of film?  Kinberg and writing partner Zak Penn did just that, and the result has fans on both sides of loving and hating this third X-MEN movie.  iF talked to Kinberg about just how close the movie was allowed to be like the comics without leaving Bryan Singer's original vision in the dust.

iF MAGAZINE: If the film follows true to the comics, did anybody really die or did the studio request that you not kill any of the main characters?

SIMON KINBERG: That was us being entirely true to the comics. The studio was incredibly open to doing whatever was the most dramatic thing to do for the movie. I think they viewed this as the end of a trilogy and potentially the end of this time of X-MEN movie.  There might be spin-offs and "young" X-MEN movies.  Certainly because of the success of the opening weekend, the studio has to be wondering how they will do an X4 when there aren't a whole lot of movies that open at that number.  When we were making the movie, I would say the studio was not only open, but was encouraging of taking out certain characters if that serviced the story. We, as the resident geeks, realized what it meant to "kill someone in the Marvel Universe". 

It's a combination of things that influence how big James Marsden's part was in X3.  Certainly him going to do SUPERMAN had a lot to do with it, he couldn't be in two places at one time.  When we sat down and said "Jimmy is doing SUPERMAN" there was the potential for re-casting Cyclops.  Kitty Pryde was recast; Pyro was recast from the first film. Cyclops wears a visor, so we could've recast him.  He's not the sort of iconic celebrity that Hugh or Halle are, but it's sort of like recasting someone in the LORD OF THE RINGS movies.  The character is a bigger celebrity than the actor in these types of films.  What we all felt was that in a way, the most dramatic incarnation of the Phoenix story would be to have her wake up and kill her lover.  Past that point in the story, you know no one in a room with her is safe.  If she's literally capable of killing the man she loves right off the bat; then you know there will be no holds barred for the rest of the movie.

Not just Marvel movies but also STAR TREK movies and STAR WARS movies, these kinds of sagas treat death differently. They have fantasy elements to them so death and life are relative terms.  That's just part of the nature of the genre.

iF: How close to the big bird of fire did you get with Phoenix?

KINBERG: We got very close.  It was a fight, well not really a fight, it was a discussion.  There were some fights but that was a discussion among all the different filmmakers -- meaning the producers, the writers, the director.  There were some of us that thought it should be closer visually to the representation in the comics. I personally really wanted to see, especially at the very end when she goes nova, her as a big bird of fire. I also wanted to potentially see the bird of fire leave her body when Wolverine stabs her at the end.  Both of those things were discussed and explored. John Boone the visual effects coordinator even did some versions of what that would look like.  I think the decision that was made by the vast majority of the people working on the movie, was to try to create the most realistic grounds in tone.  Certainly it was something that Bryan did very well in the first two movies.  In doing so you sacrifice certain things; you sacrifice certain things from the comics.  Certainly in adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga you know that you don't have the Shi'ar Empire, you don't have Jean destroying planets, you don't have her flying around the solar system.  It's a very different version of Phoenix.  That is less about our own personal taste, and more about wanting to remain true to the tone of the first two films, which are really good movies. 

iF: Have you been approached to continue working in the super hero genre with the next Marvel films?

KINBERG: Yeah, I talk to Avi [Arad] all the time and there are certainly different things whether they are in the X-MEN universe or in other franchises that they're interested in me doing.  I have to say that after living with the X-MEN for a year and a half now, I mean I really lived on the set of this movie in Vancouver for three and a half months; I'm sort of open to taking a little break from comic book adaptations.  I'm working on the MR. AND MRS. SMITH TV show, and I'm working on this movie called JUMPER with Doug Liman and we start shooting in four weeks.  I'm doing a sort of more adult thriller with Nicole Kidman and that'll take the next six to nine months of my life.  On the other side of that, I'm not sure what it will include but it might be something involving the X-MEN Universe again, but no immediate plans.  X4 I would certainly be open to doing, and WOLVERINE has a really good writer working on it now, but you never know.


Exclusive Interview: SCREENWRITER SIMON KINBERG TALKS X-MEN: THE LAST STAND - PART 3
WOLVERINE movie hints dropped during our final discussing with the X-scribe 

It's the highest grossing movie of the summer ($200 million and still counting), but the future is still uncertain for more movies based on Marvel Comic's mutant books.  One of the biggest fans of the comics was Simon Kinberg who with Zak Penn scripted X-MEN THE LAST STAND for the big screen.  Kinberg gave iF some clues as to where the screen future of the X-MEN lies, and how each actor approached what may be their final portrayal of an iconic role.

iF MAGAZINE: What was working with the Wolverine character like knowing they are planning a WOLVERINE movie?

KINBERG: WOLVERINE doesn't exactly come after X3 so what happens to him is not terribly relevant to his own movie.  We did talk about a couple of characters that they wanted to save for the WOLVERINE movie spin-off.  I can't tell you who they are, but there was really only one we wanted to use for X3, and they said they're not going to have a big enough part to risk losing them for WOLVERINE. Sabretooth will be in there, but I don't know in what form.  I think his relationship with Wolverine is under explored. I like X1 a great deal, I thought the tone was fantastic and thought the X-Men were great, but I was a little under whelmed by the Brotherhood in that movie. I thought the secret island lair and Magneto's plot were confusing to me, and Sabretooth and Toad were not as strong as Mystique.  I like working with actors who have inhabited their characters for a while, and I welcome their input.  Hugh has lived with Wolverine for five years and he knows this character better than anybody.  He knows him better than Chris Claremont or better than Avi Arad, and certainly better than any of us working on this film.  Hugh was also a producer on this movie, and we worked really closely with Hugh on Wolverine.  The most conversations that I had with actors on this movie were with Hugh about Wolverine and Famke about Phoenix.  They both are incredibly smart people who had a lot of intelligent informed questions about the characters.  I would say the most input about Wolverine came from Hugh and not the studio.

iF: How did you deal with the elements of security on X-MEN THE LAST STAND?

KINBERG: Working on MR. AND MRS. SMITH, I got used to a lot of the elements of secrecy and certain elements of the plot thanks to the tabloids.  This was a whole other level.  We were sworn to all kinds of secrecy on this movie.  We weren't supposed to tell anyone that the Phoenix was in this movie until a month or two ago, but Famke's [Janssen] name is on IMDB, so I think people were going to catch on.  The fans certainly knew that she was in it.  It's a funny universe to be a part of, let me tell you. 

iF: Halle Berry said Storm's role "evolved" as production continued, how true is that?

KINBERG: All scripts evolve while you're shooting.  This was a movie where we didn't have a lot of prep time, so she's right.  The reason I was up there on the set for three and a half months, was not to watch them shoot the movie, but to help revise as we were going.  None of the structure or the story or the general character arcs changed over the span of shooting. Certainly the details with in a scene shifted all of the time. That was my role in being up, everyday I met with Brett and the actors and we'd talk about the scenes we were about to shoot.  More often than not, there would be little tweaks to the scenes. With Storm, that's probably the character that changed the most over the span of production.  Probably because her scenes changed, which had nothing to do with her character.  It was once we realized how adamantly opposed to the cure she was, how she could be a voice in the movie, I took more advantage of that.  Her role in the physical action changed as well, which I didn't have any control over, that was more Simon Crane the stunt coordinator's domain.  She became a more integral part of the action.

iF: Did Patrick Stewart have any reservations about Xavier having "feet of clay" in this film?

KINBERG: I think the opposite.  I think Patrick was so interested in making Xavier a grayer more complex, potentially problematic character.  I think the "angelic" treatment he had gotten in the first two movies while being heroic wasn't that interesting for an actor to play.  It's not the direction the character ends up going in the comics, and I think some of that was important to Patrick.  I think what was really important was that in some ways Magneto and Xavier sort of lean toward each other in this movie.  Magneto's motivation and direction in this film is far more valid in some ways than Xavier's.  He liked playing a man who had to make difficult decisions.  There's a lot of little bits and pieces from the comics and when he says, "who are you to question me?" to Wolverine is one of them.  Patrick really liked that moment too.

[MacGuffin]

"X-Men" DVD set for October 3 release

The year's second-biggest movie is going to kick off the fourth-quarter DVD-selling season.

20th Century Fox is expected to announce Friday that "X-Men: The Last Stand," which grossed $233 million at the box office, will arrive on DVD on October 3 in two extras-laden editions.

The highlight of the third "X-Men" movie's DVD debut: three alternative endings, each with optional commentary by director Brett Ratner. The single-disc DVD release also includes 10 deleted scenes; audio commentaries from Ratner, the writers and the producers; a preview of the upcoming Ben Stiller movie "A Night at the Museum;" and two hidden "Easter eggs," one of the Beast reciting Shakespeare and the other of the X-Jet landing in Washington.

Fox also is preparing a collector's edition that includes an exclusive 100-page commemorative book with an all-new story penned by Marvel Comics master Stan Lee. It is his first original Marvel Comics book in five years.

In addition, Fox is packaging all three "X-Men" movies into a trilogy pack.

[MacGuffin]

Region 1 (USA) Bonus DVD!

If you live in region 1, then you know that FOX is only releasing a 1-disc version of X-Men: The Last Stand on DVD, while folks overseas get the full 2-disc DVD release, featuring Brett Ratner's production diary, among other cool things. The general idea is that FOX will double dip (releasing a 2-disc version of X3 in the states later down the line).

You may want to go to your local Walmart store on October 3rd, as the retail stores will carry an exclusive version of X3 with a bonus disc featuring over 50 minutes of additional behind the scenes footage!

[matt35mm]

If you live in region 1, then you know that FOX is only releasing a 1-disc version of X-Men: The Last Stand on DVD, while folks overseas get the full 2-disc DVD release, featuring Brett Ratner's production diary, among other cool things. The general idea is that FOX will double dip (releasing a 2-disc version of X3 in the states later down the line).

Well I didn't know this because I don't care.  But wow.  Fuck.  Those FOXes are some greedy bastards.

[MacGuffin]

Ratner Preps X3 SE
Director says another set is forthcoming.

Brett Ratner, director of X-Men: The Last Stand, told IGN that he is working on a Special Edition DVD to follow the initial release of the film on October 3. "Well, there's almost an hour-long making-of, my personal making of the movie, my experiences making the movie," Ratner said during a phone interview. "There's special features which include, you know, just basically the creation of the movie - I mean, how we did it in the storyboards and original animatics."

The Last Stand was originally released in theaters in May 2006 to enormous commercial success. Ratner said that the forthcoming Special Edition, which has not yet been officially announced, will serve the fans better than the comparatively bare-bones edition due out next week. "This has basically the deleted scenes and some features, but the Special Edition, I think, is the real disc for the true X-Men fan," Ratner said. "It's like the definitive kind of experience that I had personally making this film, when I went into it, from every department's perspective, really."

Ratner also said that he has no plans to recut the movie in the future, and considers the theatrical version to be his 'director's cut'. "That is my cut," he insisted. "I mean, look, do I like the scenes that are deleted? I like them, but do they drive the movie forward? No. That's the beauty of DVD - the filmmakers don't have to fall in love with their scenes, because [they] can exist in another format that people can see forever. If you love the scene, you can see it, so you don't have to put scenes in movies that you love but don't necessarily drive the plot forward."

"Everything that I shot on film for this movie will be on these DVDs, you know?" Ratner said. "The making-of, the deleted scenes, the scenes that I considered, the alternate endings, the stuff that I thought, okay, maybe Rogue shouldn't get cured. But I was really passionate about getting her cured because I think a movie about choice needs to show both sides. But I did shoot another version because I wanted to make that decision in editorial when I watched the whole movie."

[MacGuffin]

Brett Ratner Takes A Stand Against Critics As 'X-Men' DVD Release Nears
'I wasn't, you know, worrying about what other people wanted,' director says.

SANTA MONICA, California — Taking control of a beloved franchise might scare some directors. For Brett Ratner, it was just another day at the office. Ratner recently sat down with MTV to discuss the DVD release of "X-Men: The Last Stand" (due October 3), how his film differs from the first two in the trilogy and the power of the director.

MTV: Comic book fans are crazy — some guy has posted a script online for what he hopes will be "X-Men 4." Now that there's some distance from the release, what reaction have you gotten from fans, positive or negative?

Brett Ratner: When I was shooting the movie it was 90 percent negative, and then it became 90 percent positive. I didn't look at the Internet the whole time I was shooting because ["X-Men" and "X2" director] Bryan Singer told me, "Whatever you do, don't look at the Internet." There are rabid fans, and each fan has a different opinion of who should be at the forefront of the series. Some people were obsessed with Rogue, so they think that Rogue should have the most screen time. If I start to listen to that stuff, it'll just drive me nuts. I literally did not read anything. I was in Canada in heavy production for over 100 days focused on making my movie. I wasn't, you know, worrying about what other people wanted.

MTV: Was the success of the film a personal vindication in any way?

Ratner: No. I mean, look: I felt that it was a built-in franchise. It had a huge core audience, [so] the movie was going to be successful. The thing that I was personally excited about was that I love the movie. At the end of the day, I was happy with how it came out. It was one of my dreams to make a superhero film, and my dream came true. All the actors loved the movie so much, and that was great for me because they were in the first two. I'm sure if there was an "X-Men 4," they would all show up if I was directing it. 
 
MTV: You got onboard late in the development process. You were more or less handed a complete script, yes?

Ratner: No. I don't know where you read that, but I wasn't handed a finished script.

MTV: So what input did you have into the script? Did you say, "I want more of this character," or, "I want a scene in this location"?

Ratner: I did not change the plot of the film. The plot of the film, the cure and the Dark Phoenix plot, was exactly the way it was. But as far as the scenes and the set pieces — there was not one location selected. There was nothing. I hired all the new X-Men. And the third act was completely different — I did change the entire third act. It originally took place in Washington, D.C. It had nothing to do with Alcatraz. But I don't think it matters. I'm the director of the movie.

Two of my other movies, I came into the project [while it was already in development]. Directors are, in my opinion, the auteurs of the movie. Not that writers aren't important, but that's why it's a Brett Ratner film and not a Zak Penn or a Simon Kinberg film. That's why it's a Bryan Singer film. I'm the most collaborative person with the writers. I actually had Simon and Zak there the whole time I was making the movie. They're the biggest "X-Men" fans in the world, so, you know, I'm not taking anything away from them. But what I'm saying is the script is not the movie. The movie's the movie. Where I put the camera, how I block the scene, the tone of the scene — but I did stay very true not only to the first two movies but to the comic books.

MTV: Speaking of comic books, how much of the movie was drawn from Joss Whedon's story "Gifted"?

Ratner: It wasn't just from Whedon. Every scene in this movie you could find in an existing comic book — a portion of it or the idea behind it. I didn't want the fans saying, "Oh, Brett Ratner invented this in his mind." So I made Zak and Simon show me the comic book references. Every single scene I had on my wall in my office in comic book form.

MTV: Was it difficult to balance so many characters? There are so many more mutants in this film than in the previous two.

Ratner: Well, that was the challenge. I didn't want to reinvent the franchise. My goal was to stay true to the first two movies and create a film that felt like it was part of a trilogy, as if you're watching "Lord of the Rings." I thought Bryan did a brilliant job of creating the universe, so I just stayed within that tone and focused on the emotionality of the story and the characters.

MTV: So would you have preferred to focus on fewer characters?

Ratner: No. When I did "Red Dragon," I had a huge ensemble. The most difficult part is balancing it. How much time do you spend with Rogue or Wolverine? The most interesting story line, I think, is the Dark Phoenix plot. I gave Halle Berry's character a little bit more to do. So that was my focus. Bryan focused more on the male characters. I focused more on the female aspect of it, because that was what my plot was.

MTV: Does living in the DVD age make it easier for a director? Are you able to experiment more?

Ratner: Absolutely. You no longer have to put scenes in the movie just because you love them. You know it's going to exist somewhere forever in another format.

MTV: What scenes that you fell in love with are on the DVD?

Ratner: Well, I put all the deleted scenes on. There are some interesting things on the DVD as far as debates we were having. For instance, if Rogue should get cured or not — I put on the alternate version where Rogue doesn't get cured. I was passionate about it, because ... you need to show both sides in the film. But there's no scene that was so important to me that I had to have it in the movie.

MTV: Are there going to be any future "X-Men" movies?

Ratner: It wasn't in the plan, but I loved the experience of it, and I loved all the actors, and I would definitely do it again if they asked me to come back. I had that little thing [at the end] where Magneto moved the [chess] piece. Did I want to see a sad, old pathetic man who lost his powers in a park? Did I personally want to see some hope? Yeah. It wasn't because of the fans, I just wanted to see it. Is it mind over matter, or is it the power? Poses a lot of questions.

[modage]

Brett Ratner - Auteur