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New York Comic-Con was pretty lowkey this year. Actors like Chris Evans, Ewan McGregor, David Tennant, and some of the cast members of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 showed up, but were respectful of SAG-AFTRA rules to not promote their projects. Evans did a panel basically just talking about life. I would have loved to have seen that panel. I haven’t been to NYCC since 2008. We tried to get tickets this year, but it was already sold out. Next year!
Director Matthew Vaughn also did a panel on Saturday, where he spoke about his upcoming spy thriller Argylle and shared some news about future projects, including a Kick-Ass reboot, Kingsman 3, and an unnamed musical. But perhaps the biggest bit of gossip to come out of Vaughn’s panel was an anecdote he shared about why he left the X-Men franchise. According to Vaughn, execs wanted to send Halle Berry a fake script to trick her into signing on for the third X-Men movie.
Director Matthew Vaughn claimed on Saturday that he decided to leave the 2006 blockbuster “X-Men: The Last Stand” after learning that several Fox executives were planning on giving Halle Berry a fake script. Speaking at New York Comic Con, Vaughn, 52, alleged that he walked into an executive’s office and noticed that the script that was being sent to the “Catwoman” actress was considerably different from the one he had, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“I went into one of the executive’s office and I saw an X3 script, and I immediately knew it was a lot fatter. I was like, ‘What the hell is this draft?’” the “Kingsmen” director told the audience. “He went, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m the director. I’m worrying about this draft.’”
“He wouldn’t tell me, so I grabbed it literally — it was like a crazy moment — opened the first page, and it said, ‘Africa. Storm. Kids dying of no water. She creates a thunderstorm and saves all these children,’” continued Vaughn.
Even though Vaughn admitted it was a “pretty cool idea,” he was still furious that the film executives would try to allegedly dupe Berry, 57, with a fake script.
“[I went,] ‘What is this?’ [They said,] ‘Oh, it’s Halle Berry’s script.’ I went, ‘OK, because she hasn’t signed up yet.’ ‘But this is what she wants it to be, and once she signs up, we’ll throw it in the bin,’” Vaughn recalled the executives allegedly saying.
“I was like, ‘Wow, you’re gonna do that to an Oscar-winning actress who plays Storm? I’m outta here.’ So I quit at that point.”
Berry eventually agreed to join the film — with the original script — alongside Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Ian McKellen, Kelsey Grammer, Elliot Page and James Marsden. Vaughn was replaced by “Rush Hour” director Brett Ratner.
This story shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone but that is supremely f–ed up. I’m sure this is not the only example of something like this happening in Hollywood, particularly to a woman, and especially to a Black woman. It didn’t matter that she’s an Academy Award winner or a huge box office draw. It didn’t even matter that this was the third movie in the franchise, so presumably, they already had a relationship with Halle and her team. I’m angry just hearing this story 17 years later. It’s just so messed up. I would love it if more people came out and blew up execs spots like this. Maybe we can start a hashtag. Oh, and honestly, Vaughn dodged a bullet by walking away from X3. It was not that good.
But did he tell her?
Another hint that this is messed up: “Africa”
Why not name a specific country in Africa, if you want to do that?
Countries in Africa are very different, with different cultures, situations, languages, politics etc.
They would not have “Europe” “North America” or “Asia” on a script like that, but “Canada”, “Austria” or “Thailand”.
They should have taken a map, actually learn the countries in Africa and where they’re at, and then at least a little bit about them.
It is exactly this lack of knowledge of Africa and portrayal as a monolith that makes it so easy to dismiss as “a place where poor people live”, while Africa also had many civilizations (not just Egypt!) and accomplishments in history and now.
💯 % this. It’s an entire continent with more countries than the U.S. has states. It’s like saying Greece is interchangeable with France, or the U.S. with Mexico. I took classes in African History and Modern African Politics at university and the first thing the professor did was require the students to learn and take a test on African geography, because his point was that you can’t understand the politics or the history without understanding the geography. That test was hard too! As I recall, there were 53 countries, some tiny and some huge. How many people can accurately name and label all 50 U.S. states? Plus the landscape is vastly different, the continent has Mediterranean coast line, desert, the fertile Nile River delta, rainforests, mountains and highlands, and farmable land. Treating the entire continent like a monolith is just Western ignorance and does the continent and its people a true disservice. Sorry for the rant, but that just set me off today.
@ It Really Is You, Not Me
Well said.
It is a huge continent. Good points on the geography as well and it being so different. Your professor is great.
We had to learn all the countries in Africa in primary school (we did a continent every month in sixth grade and we had to learn all the countries + capitals with some information about some of the countries), but it’s very easy to forget after that test is finished. I remember Africa being the hardest precisely because individual countries are less mentioned than they are of other continents, so most of it was new.
So, I now take a world map every month and look at every country just to help remember. It’s fun and instantly helps me understand why some things are as they are geopolitically and why this country gets along well with that country (or doesn’t).
Sporcle has quizzes on things like all countries in a continent or “all states in the USA”. I am not from the US, so that is how I learned all the American states 😉
Just mentioning that because it might be a helpful tool for other people who want to learn.
Great comments, Flowerlake and It Really Is You, Not Me! Well said. I’d just like to add that over time countries can change. Boarders might be redrawn or they can earn independence or change names. Keep paying attention to world events and geography.
“New York Comic-Con was pretty lowkey this year.”
Right. Loki was there too.
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This anecdote is disturbing.
Men using their power, but not their minds – creativity, emotion – to literally overpower a woman.
How disgusting. But what else is new?
Good for MV to speak out, too bad though that this won’t have any kind of consequences.
The lowkey/Loki joke just cracked me up. Thanks for the laugh.
You know, I often hear about stars signing on to a film because they “loved the character’s story” originally and then things somehow got changed during filming or in post production. I always thought it was an excuse for a lousy film, but maybe not!
The minute I read this I immediately thought of an actress, cannot recall her name, who signed in to a film and got a verbal agreement for no nudity. Once on set she was informed that her first scene was not only nude but involved explicit sex scenes. Wish I could recall that interview.
This is a known thing that happens all the time. A rewrite happens to attract a star. How much of the rewrites make it to the final film is variable.
This story is particularly bad, though.
I didn’t realize how prevalent this practice was! Halle Berry’s being offered a fake script did shock and appall me. This is awful!
This is malpractice. How are these guys getting away with all this
It’s even worse: it’s fraud.
X3 was so bad they literally created a whole new X-men universe to retcon it out of existence. I can understand why now.
Hollywood is the worst place in the world if you are a woman.
Disgusting!!
I only remember being a teenager and being really annoyed that those movies seemed to only revolved around Wolverine. The way they treated Halle Berry makes perfect sense, they just wanted her in the background with only two lines to say.