10 Most Intriguing Marvel Movies That Were Never Made

8) Singer/Vaughn’s X-Men 3

Alongside X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the lowpoint of the X-Men franchise is X-Men: The Last Stand. Directed by Brett Ratner, it is an overstuffed mess of a movie. However, it wasn’t always this way and was almost directed by either Bryan Singer or Matthew Vaughn.

At first, Singer developed a story treatment for the film with X-Men 2 writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty. His version would have concentrated on Jean Grey, who is manipulated by Emma Frost – Singer saw Sigourney Weaver in the role – into becoming the Dark Phoenix. Shortly after, Singer left the project to realize his dream job of directing Superman Returns.

With Singer out of the picture, future X-Men: First Class director Vaughn was briefly in charge – he cast Kelsey Grammer as Beast and, unfortunately, Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut – before he disagreed with Fox’s insistence on a fast track production.

While either director’s vision would have been better than what we got, we can console ourselves with the fact that both returned to the franchise – and ended up wiping The Last Stand from continuity.