Matthew Vaughn Says He Could Have Done X-Men 3 100x Better

I for one actually liked all the XMen movies, including The Last Stand. I didn’t think that Ratner changed the feel of the movie too much from the original Singer vision, despite the casting choices to remove Nightcrawler… but I digress. Everything has room for improvement, and apparently Matthew Vaughn thinks there was a 100 times more room.

M&C.com reports:

Matthew told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper: “As it happens, I could have made something a hundred times better than the film that was eventually made. It sounds arrogant, but I could have done something with far more emotion and heart. I’m probably going to be told off for saying that, but I genuinely believe it.”

Now I have the highest regard for a Director and I understand how they can shape a movie’s feel, but I wonder if Vaughn is exaggerating just a tiny bit.

A Hundred Times better?

I don’t know that with the same script, the same actors and the same story that you could do a movie a “hundred times better”.

How do you measure that? Would it have taken in a hundred times more money? Would people talk about it a hundred times more? I think any director could look at a movie and say “I could do that better” but that phrase seems to imply that he could have done SO much more that the movie would have been SO dramatically different.

I would be curious to see what he would have changed. Same movie with better acting? Better scenes? Or is he talking about changing the script to have reflected a totally different direction?

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16 thoughts on “Matthew Vaughn Says He Could Have Done X-Men 3 100x Better

  1. With one simple bit of direction, telling Famke to stop staring blankly and start acting like the psychotic, egotistical vixen that we all know The Dark Phoenix really is, would have increased the movie by at least 50x’s. So, yeah, 100 shouldn’t be too hard.

  2. It’s the choices that would have differed Matthew Vaughn’s over Ratner’s, even if the script was the same. First off, things often change from script to screen. Dialogue can change on the wim, if its not working, and I think we can all say that there was some lame dialogue in X3 as is (mostly from Storm). Maybe he would have emphasized on things more. His direction would have probably been different. Color tones maybe. Most like the final cut istelf would have been differently. It’s the whole director’s touch thing. It’s kinda hard to explian, like say Steven Spielberg directed Transformers instead of Mifchael Bay, but used the same script, word for word, but it would still be competely different from what actually exists.

    Now, a hundred times better? I don’t know. Thats like saying that if Richard Donner continued to work on Superman 2, it would be a hundred times better. (“The Richard Donner Cut” doesnt count because Donner never finished working on the film and it is comprised using what they had..but even if it does, its not a “100 times better”)

  3. Ratner’s not to blame, seems to be a motto around here.

    Nobody forced him to accept a project that was such a train-wreck in waiting by the time he came on board.

    He chose to take over the project under those circumstances instead of walking.

    Fox has the lion-share of blame, but anyone who
    *chose* to work on the project knowing the state it was in (and lets face it, if half the internet knew, a director must have known) can’t be absolved completely of blame.

    Equally, Vaughn left the project, so it’s a little unprofessional to be playing games of “I coulda done better” especially as most reviews of Stardust are saying he himself could’ve done better on the project he actually did do.

  4. This issue is a moot point. Bret Ratner took the brunt of X-men 3 because the general movie-going audience and people who did NOT follow the behind the scenes drama Only know him.

    Those of us who followed this film closely know that Ratner had NOTHING to do with X-men 3’s failures even though I generally dislike him.

    X-men 3’s failures fall squarely on the shoulders of 20th Century Fox execs, specifically Tom Rothman?(forget his name exactly).

    Ratner did NOT approve X3’s small budget, Rothman did!

    Ratner did NOT set X3’s incredibly rushed production schedule, Rothman did!

    By the time Ratner came onboard the script was already finished so we cannot blame the bizarre plotlines on him.

    Look, X3’s fate was a bizarre occurence in Hollywood. X3 was ruined by one man’s insane personal revenge crusade.

    Tom Rothman was insanely angry at Bryan Singer for taking Superman Returns and his vendetta spiraled into something unbelievable.

    X3’s rushed shooting schedule was because Rothman didn’t want to be beat out of the gate by Singer’s Superman.

    I fully believe that Cyclop’s(James Marsden’s) horribly written story and fate in X3 was revenge by Rothman for siding with Singer and taking a role in Superman Returns AND a message to everyone NOT to Fuck with him!

    I am a huge comic fan and did some research and found out some things that will make you all happy.

    Thankfully, Marvel Comics was NOT happy with X3 in any way, shape, or form and they let their displeasure be known. After X3 came out Marvel put out a statement to 20th Century Fox politely telling them that X3 did NOT fit into Marvel’s vision for it’s movie franchise and that they may have to re-evaluate their relationship with FOX.

    Not long after this Marvel set plans in motion to create their own Movie Production company which leads us to Iron Man today.

    X3 did serve one good purpose. It pissed Marvel off so bad they finally got tired of OTHER movie companies fucking up their franchises and now they will be making their OWN films with NO studio interference…hopefully!

  5. Layer Cake is one of the best movies ever. With that one sentence, Darren, everything you said has been negated! I luved the ending of Layer Cake so much. All his worries about other things and then he gets it from someone he didn’t even think about…luv it. That was probably a spoiler…

  6. I don’t know much about Matthew Vaughn, but I don’t think he would have had to work too hard in order to make it better. The beast (ha ha) that was unleashed upon theater-goers was ridiculous. To say that the film was a disaster gives it too much credit. Instead, I simply pretend that the events of the third film never happened. I mean, the writer/director/executives that decided to kill [name withheld], [name withheld] and [name withheld] needs to be put in movie jail. Then let out in 10 years, lol.

    This film was so blatantly created by suits who care for nothing but the bottom line (i.e. establish two spin-off films, kill off expensive cast members, etc.).

    What I’m really trying to say is “I hated X-Men 3”. :)

  7. Well…time for my two cents.

    1. Could he have done better? Maybe, not by much. As mentioned, Vaughn, before he left, did have the cast in place-including Kelsey Grammar and Vinnie Jones (the two of the three *major* new additions to the series) and the script concept would have been very close. Shit on Ratner all you want to- but in my opinion, Ratner *was* brung in on short notice and got the film done.
    Every director’s directing style is different. But, unless I miss my guess, under Vaughn’s tenure, we knew this about the X:Men Last Stand story at the time:

    major characters will die
    Which is one of the common charges on Ratner. Now I’m not the biggest Ratner fan. But I do like some of his films, including the third X-Men film.

    2. So now that Vaughn has said this… If he backs out at the last minute on THOR and whoever directs it directs it at the drop of a hat, under a time limit, under a fixed budget, and when the fanboys rake said director X over the coals…will Vaughn come out a year later and say “Well, I could have done better!”

    Well, shit on brick.
    I’M SORRY Mr. Vaughn. YOU left X-Men. You couldn’t have done a better job, Period. So you better not leave Thor. In fact, you better make Thor a kick ass movie and show the universe how to make a great comics based movie. Either that or don’t say you’re better than Ratner.

    By The Way, since we all seem to roll over Mr. Ratner right now, let me say this: Ratner, had he been the first choice, could have made a better Layer Cake. I HATED Layer Cake. I honestly believe that if I hadn’t seen Daniel Craig in other films, I might have not gone to see Casino Royale.
    Serious.

    And I have serious doubts on Thor. So now Vaughn has the chance, she better not blow it to hell, and have something to back up his shit.

    What arrogance.

    Look, I don’t love all of Ratners films. And even if I hated every last one of them AND X-3, I’d still say Vaughn is full of junk.

  8. While X-men 3 didn’t kill the trilogy for me, it certainly was a disappointment when compared to my satisfaction with the first and second films.

    100’s may just be his way of conveying “i could make it better”…

    kinda like threatening someone you’ll “kill em” if they don’t do something. Not like you would per se, but it helps give them contrast.

    PS. I HATED the final battle on x-men 3, really that was the major element of ED for the whole thing.

  9. …well who couldn’t of made X-Men 3 100 times better than it was. It was complete trash. But, then again, I’m in the majority when I say I thought the first X-men movie was way better than the 2nd one as well. Atleast it was sooo bad as Spiderman 3 was tho. Spidey 3 made me hate the entire franchise because of what the did with it…like completely building up Harry’s character for 2 movies just to have him be the worst part of Spidey 3.

  10. Exactly Kristina.
    Fact is, he had the opportunity to do it, but instead he walked.
    He should have tried to keep this thing on course, but instead he made it possible for The Rat to ruin the conclusion of this trilogy.
    I’m still glad Singer chose SUPERMAN RETURNS over X3. If he would have had the chance to do both I think he would have done so, but he had to make up his mind. Would you have rather seen Ratner sink his teeth into the Man of Steel. I’m glad it turned out this way, not the other way around.

  11. It’s easy to talk shit and say what he would have done now, after the fact. I’m willing to bet good money that people still would have bitched and moaned about HIS version, too. I don’t care what he would have done. I care about what SINGER would have done. If he released his treatment for X3, I’d pay good money to read it.

  12. Hey Jeff,

    I think Rodney understands Hyperbole… but he’s 100x… I mean 100% right when he says:

    “that phrase seems to imply that he could have done SO much more that the movie would have been SO dramatically different.”

    I think he understood that he wasn’t being litteral with his 100x number… but he’s right about using that hyperbole suggests he could have done SOOOO much more.

  13. Ok lets put this in perspective. Was X3 the weakest of the X-men films? Yes of course. Were fans disspointed? Most were yes. Could another director have made the movie better? Simply, Yes. Honestly how many times have ppl said I can do that 10xbetter or 100xbetter? I think if he could really do a better X-men movie then Fox should give him that oppertunity for X4. Then we can truly judge his work vs Ratners work on the X-men Franchise.

  14. hy·per·bo·le /haɪˈpɜrbəli/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[hahy-pur-buh-lee] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
    –noun Rhetoric.
    1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.

    This site has never been guilty of intentional exaggeration, right?

  15. Well it’s just an expression but what he also probably means is that he could have made a movie 100 times better if he’d had total creative control and not been making the movie under the current Fox (“we don’t want films, we want release dates”) regime.

    It is an interesting comment though as the basic spine of X3 was supervised by him.

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