A damning reported about director Bryan Singer is shedding light on the production of the “X-Men” franchise.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and others in the main cast at one point threatened to quit “X2: X-Men United” following a stunt that went wrong.
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Producer Tom DeSanto allegedly called for the production to be halted after learning that Singer and other crew members were “incapacitated after taking a narcotic” when mounting the stunt ahead of schedule.
DeSanto reportedly “became fearful that someone on set could be injured,” but Singer “was defiant and continued shooting.”
The stunt went ahead, during a scene featuring all the main cast except Ian McKellan. The decision to shoot allegedly led to “a botched stunt that left Jackman bleeding on camera.”
Following the incident, production was shut down, and the cast threatened to quit the following day when 20th Century Fox execs “appeared to side with Singer.”
“That prompted the main cast members, minus McKellen and Romijn — all dressed in their full X-Men costumes — to converge in Singer’s trailer and confront him, threatening to quit if DeSanto left. That’s when Berry famously said to Singer, ‘You can kiss my Black a**,’ a line that has been oft-reported in the years since but never with the correct backstory,” THR reported.
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Singer completed production on the film, and went on to direct the films “X-Men: Days of Future Past” and “X-Men: Apocalypse” in the franchise.
An executive involved in the films told THR anonymously, “His behaviour was poor on the movie. We accommodated him on the first movie, and therefore we can accommodate him on the second movie. And on and on. And it created a monster.”
A rep for the director told the magazine, “nothing like that ever happened” with regards to the injury.
