On the eve of X-Men: Days Of Future Past‘s release, social media was awash with chatter about one particular scene: Magneto’s breakout. The brilliant blend of technical wizardry and humor orbited around one pivotal character in the sequence, the boy who can move at the speed of light, Quicksilver. The mission to retrieve Magneto from the Pentagon proved to be a massive hit with fans; but it very nearly didn’t happen.
In fact, that scene was originally allotted for the reappearance of The Last Stand character Juggernaut. Played in the 2006 sequel by Vinnie Jones, DoFP writer and producer Simon Kinberg previously went on record to say he initially toyed with the idea of including a younger version of the character.
Now, thanks to an interview on the Empire Online podcast, director Matthew Vaughn explains how Juggernaut’s bulky ballast would have proved indispensable in capturing Magneto:
I had Juggernaut being thrown out of a plane at 20,000 feet and using his head to go down a hole to get to the bottom of [The White House]. I had Beast saying, ‘I have a plan,’ and him replying, ‘What’s the plan? What’s the plan?’, and they go higher and higher and Beast was going to go, ‘This is it!’ and chuck him out the window. Then he goes smashing through [The White House] … and Magneto goes, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
Also, it seems the location for the villainous mutant’s retrieval differed in those early drafts. Either way, the locale wasn’t the most impressive element of the sequence, it was undoubtedly the method of break out. Quicksilver’s super-fast speeds lent themselves to a different type of comedy. But, the chance to see Beast throw Juggernaut from a plane? That’s a tough call.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past is available now on Blu-ray. The follow-up, X-Men: Apocalypse is due on May 27th, 2016.