Halle Berry was Reportedly Lured Back to the 'X-Men' Franchise With a Fake Scene & a Hollywood Insider Is Spilling the Tea

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Director Matthew Vaughn is spilling the tea on his time working on the X-Men franchise and the real reason he walked away from the series’ third installation. The story involves Halle Berry, but she was not the reason for his exit, the studio executives were. She was, unfortunately, a pawn in the Hollywood game. 

He was set to direct the third installation, X-Men: The Last Stand, but ultimately quit over one shady  20th Century Fox move. “I went into one of the executive’s offices and I saw an X3 script, and I immediately knew it was a lot fatter. I was like what the hell is this draft. He went, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m the director. I’m worrying about this draft,’” he shared at New York Comic Con on Saturday, via The Hollywood Reporter. “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.'”

Vaughn honestly loved the idea, but he soon found out why his draft was different from Berry’s “[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 revealed the executive’s reasoning. “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.”

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While Vaughn walked away from that particular film, he did come back to the franchise for 2011’s X-Men: First Class as a director and as a producer for X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014. Berry hasn’t commented on the story, but we would sure love to hear her take because it feels like a really unfair situation to be tricked into, particularly as an Oscar-winning actress.

Before you go, click here to see the most iconic roles played by Black women in movies & TV.