Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was teased in the second trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse, but given that his part was more of a glorified cameo, that little teaser may have felt like a spoiler to some — even though Wolverine appearing in a new X-Men movie is hardly surprising. Hardly. As it turns out, Jackman almost had a bigger role to play in the new sequel, but it was ultimately reduced to avoid detracting from Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique.

While speaking with Cinema Blend, X-Men producer and writer Simon Kinberg reveals that an earlier draft of the Apocalypse script featured a bit more Wolverine, essentially putting him in Mystique’s place for a portion of the film:

There was always a notion that we wanted Wolverine to be in the movie. We wanted to find a way to feature him in the film, partly because Bryan [Singer] and I love Hugh [Jackman] so much. We love the character, obviously, and he’s such a huge part of the franchise. There were a lot of iterations of how Wolverine would enter and exit the movie. There was a version when he was going to come in at the midpoint of the film and be like the drill sergeant for the kids and take over as their leader. And we felt like that stepped on Jen’s role in the movie and becoming their leader.

As you likely know by now, Wolverine’s role is much smaller, and takes place at the Weapon X facility where he’s once again had his skeleton fused with adamantium — which also doesn’t make much sense, considering both the timeline reboot and ending of Days of Future Past. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  And if you’re confused by the increasingly senseless timeline of the X-Men franchise, you’re not alone.

Apocalypse is currently playing in theaters. But you knew that.

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