X-Men (2000)
>James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Richard Donner, Tim Burton, Robert Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, John McTiernan, Irvin Kershner, Stephen Hopkins and Joel Schumacher were approached to direct the movie before Bryan Singer was hired.
>Early drafts featured Beast, Pyro and the Blob, who were removed due to budget restraints.
>Russell Crowe, Keannu Reeves, Gary Sinise, Edward Norton, Kiefer Sutherland, Aaron Eckhart and Viggo Mortensen were approached for Wolverine before Dougray Scott was cast. He later dropped out and was replaced by Hugh Jackman.
>Thomas Jane was approached for Cyclops before James Caviezel was cast. He later dropped out and was replaced by James Marsden. Edward Burns and D.B. Sweeney also auditioned.
>Julianne Moore, Maria Bello, Peta Wilson and Lucy Lawless were approached for Jean Grey before Famke Janssen was cast.
>Angela Bassett and Jada Pinkett-Smith were approached for Storm before Halle Berry was cast.
>Natalie Portman, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rachel Leigh Cook, Christina Ricci and Katherine Isabelle were approached for Rogue before Anna Paquin was cast.
>Jeri Ryan auditioned for the role of Mystique before Rebecca Romjin was cast.
>Triple H auditioned for the role of Sabretooth before Tyler Mane was cast.
>Terence Stamp and Christopher Lee were approached for Magneto before Ian McKellen was cast.
>The movie had a troubled production, fraught with script rewrites and budget restraints. Fox postponed the release from Christmas 1999 to July 2000 and the rescheduled shooting led to several several actors and crew members dropping out due to scheduling conflicts.
>Fox was skeptical of the movie's potential and enforced several last-minute cuts to shorten the running time. Nevertheless, Singer believed something should be set up to explore in potential future installments and instructed Famke Janssen to react to being exposed to Magneto's machine to set up her transformation into the Phoenix.