When Comic Books Were Banned From the X-Men Set

In these days of endless comic book movie blockbusters, stars inking cash-heavy long-term contracts with Marvel and DC, and legitimately expected Con appearances at NYCC and SDCC, it’s extraordinary to imagine a director being worried that their film’s cast might do too much research on the iconic characters that they’re playing, but Bryan Singer was in that kind of mood back on 20th Century Fox’s 2000 gamble, X-Men.

Star Hugh Jackman, who went on to play the role of Wolverine plenty of times after the success of that first film, recently sat down with MTV to promote The Front Runner, and revealed that Singer was none too happy about the idea of his cast drawing acting inspiration from the X-Men comics on set – not that his ban stuck.

“Bryan Singer had this thing that people would think he really wanted to take comic book characters seriously, as real three-dimensional characters, that people who don’t understand these comics might think they’re two-dimensional, so no one was allowed [comics]. … It was contraband,” Jackman explained. “I’d never read X-Men, so people were slipping them under my door.”

You can watch the full interview below…

Since the character’s swansong in James Mangold’s well-received Logan in 2017, Jackman has ruled out a return to his stint as Wolverine, but he’s got a fight on his hands. Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefield recently attempted to coax the actor back into the fold, with Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds also jokingly referring to Jackman’s reticence as “selfish.”