X-Men 2 wouldn’t have turned out the way it did without the intervention of a 10-year-old girl.
In 2003, three years after the release of X-Men, the sequel (also known as X2: X-Men United) brought Marvel’s famed mutant protagonists and antagonists back to the big screen. This story focused on Brian Cox’s William Stryker trying to eliminate all mutants from Earth and was an even bigger critical and commercial success than its predecessor. Editor John Ottman credits the aforementioned girl for having “saved” the final version of X-Men 2.
In an interview with Half The Picture, Ottman recalled a “friends and family” screening of X-Men 2 being held ahead of its wide release. Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment at the time, was among those in attendance. After the movie finished, Rothman said that although he thought X-Men 2 was “great,” he also thought it was “too confusing” because of, as Ottman described it, “alternate realities and Cerebro, you got the little girl who’s really an illusion,” etc. The editor continued:
[Rothman’s] 10-year-old daughter was there with him, and he looked at her… I forgot her name. He goes, “Sandra,” whatever, “Do you know what happened in this film?” “Oh yes, Daddy!” And she stood up, and she gave this whole summary of everything that happened in the film, the different realities and so forth. So in that moment, we sat there with this collective sigh of relief. We were holding our breath, and she saved that movie. His daughter saved that film. Because of her being able to tell him everything that was happening in the film, we didn’t touch it.
Ottman is referring to the illusion that Jason Stryker, William Stryker’s mutant son, forcibly crafted in Professor X’s mind, with the little girl serving as Jason’s avatar. The elder Stryker intended to trick Charles Xavier into using Cerebro to kill all the mutants. While Professor X did briefly trigger agonizing pain in all of his kind around the world, Mystique then impersonated William and commanded Jason to have Xavier kill all the humans instead. Ultimately, this was prevented as well when Storm and Nightcrawler came to rescue Xavier.
Had Rothman’s daughter not shared her X-Men 2 breakdown, it’s unclear how it would have been altered in order to satisfy the studio executive. Still, considering how the movie was received, it was evidently the right decision not to make any changes. Ottman concluded this portion of the interview by saying, “That’s how crazy filmmaking is.”
X-Men 2’s ensemble cast included established actors like Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, and Rebecca Romijn all reprising their roles from the first X-Men movie, as well as newcomers like Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, Aaron Stanford as Pyro, and Kelly Hu as Deathstrike. The Bryan Singer-directed movie ranks at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes in both the Tomatometer and Popcornmeter categories. It made over $407 million at the global box office, a $110 million+ increase from what X-Men pulled in.
X-Men 2 can be streamed alongside the rest of the main X-Men film series on Disney+. Stewart’s Professor X, McKellen’s Magneto, Marsden’s Cyclops, Romijn’s Mystique, and Cumming’s Nightcrawler will join Kelsey Grammer’s Beast and Channing Tatum’s Gambit in representing the Fox-era X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday this December.
