X-Men - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[ethel]

Wary of the risk of starting an expensive franchise that could have died after just one movie, 20th Century Fox's studio executives assigned this movie a budget of only $75 million, quite low for a big summer tent-pole release, when the average summer blockbuster budget at the time, was upwards of $100 million.

[darrell]

(At around forty-four minutes) When Mystique impersonates Iceman (Bobby Drake) to make Rogue leave the school, it is possible to see Bobby's breath, even though this movie appears to be set in midsummer. This trait, an after-effect of Bobby's ability, was widely appreciated by fans, and seen as Bryan Singer's dedication to the X-Men franchise. However, it is now more accepted as an error, since it was Mystique's impersonation. The effect was, however, intentionally added into X2: X-Men United (2003), when Iceman and Rogue share a kiss.

[tammy]

Rachael Leigh Cook and Katharine Isabelle were the top choices for the role of Rogue.

[michele]

Sir Patrick Stewart was the first actor to be cast as a mutant, and in fact, had been a fan-favorite for the role of Professor X since the 1990s.

[mathew]

Gary Goddard: (At around forty-three minutes) The Director of Masters of the Universe (1987) is one of the men watching Senator Kelly emerge from the ocean. Singer and Goddard are good friends, and before production, Singer sought out Goddard's advice on directing "a comic book movie".

[victoria]

Helen Hunt was asked to play Jean Grey, but she turned down the role.

[maureen]

The first scene shot for the movie was the World Summit scene on Liberty Island, where representatives from each country are greeted. Two of the guests (jokingly identified by Bryan Singer as King and Queen of Poland, titles which have not legally existed since 1795) are played by Singer's father and stepmother.

[kenzi]

Tyler Mane, James Marsden, and Ray Park are the only actors whose nationalities match their respective characters Sabretooth (Canadian) Cyclops (American) and Toad (British).The majority of the cast do not match the nationalities of their characters: Hugh Jackman/Wolverine (Australian/Canadian), Famke Janssen/Jean Grey (Dutch/American), Halle Berry/Storm (American/Kenyan), Sir Patrick Stewart/Professor X (English/American), Sir Ian McKellen/Magneto (English/German-Jewish), Anna Paquin/Rogue (Canadian-Kiwi/American), Shawn Ashmore/Iceman (Canadian/American), and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos/Mystique (American/unknown).

[gabriel]

(At around twenty-one minutes) On his desk, Magneto has a variation on Newton's Cradle, minus the strings. This is the device where one lifts one chrome ball off to the side, releases it, lets it hit the other four balls, and then sees the energy transferred when the last ball on the opposite side moves. The original device was sculpted by Richard Loncraine, who directed Sir Ian McKellen in Richard III (1995).

[liam]

The comic character Mortimer "Toad" Toynbee is a hunchback, but that was changed for the movie when martial artist Ray Park was cast.

[camila]

The replica of Lady Liberty's head is one and a half times the size of the real thing.

[kristina]

David Hemblen, who voiced Magneto in X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), was considered to reprise his role in live-action. It appealed to him, but he had to turn it down, due to scheduling conflicts.

[dustin]

In 1994, screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker wrote a draft of the script: the X-Men (Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Gray, Beast, Iceman, Angel, and new member Wolverine) must stop the Brotherhood of Mutants (Magneto, Sabretooth, Toad, and new member the Blob) from conquering New York City, while at the same time are set upon by a triplet of Sentinels, robots created by anti-mutant government officials Henry Peter Gyrich and Boliver Trask. The script focused on the rivalry between Cyclops and Wolverine, and had Magneto the cause of the Chernobyl disaster; also included was the X-Copter and the Danger Room. The script was never used, but dialogue and plot elements were used in the movie's official novel adaptation.