The towering giant known as Colossus is one of those mutant heroes who hasn’t properly received his due in the various X-Men movies. After appearing briefly in X2: X-Men United and Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand, Colossus (as played by actor Daniel Cudmore) finally got some battle action in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. And he was offered the chance to play him again… but he passed.
That’s a Tweet from Colossus actor Daniel Cudmore, who admits that he could have returned to play the shiny, metallic mutant in Tim Miller’s Deadpool movie, but didn’t necessarily agree with how he was going to be portrayed on screen. That being said, Cudmore did follow up with:
Very strange. It’s rare that you hear of an actor turning down work. Especially when you consider that Colossus has a pretty decent part in Tim Miller’s Deadpool movie. He always was part of the script, which leaked online and got fans very excited about what could happen in this R-rated, unconventional comic-book world. Instead, Cudmore passed on the opportunity to play Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin, and the role went to Andre Tricoteux.
In an interview with Empire, where he broke down the recent red-band trailer, Tim Miller talked about Cudmore’s decision, confirming that the choice to use all CGI is what turned the actor off. But anyone who read the leaked Deadpool script knew that Colossus had to play a part in the film. Miller explained:
We were never going to be able to keep Colossus as a secret. He was in the script that leaked and all that. I wasn't actually sure, until we were standing there shooting it, that at some point Fox was going to say, 'Hold on a second; we can’t put Colossus from our treasured X-Men franchise in this movie to be made fun of!' But they did, and not only that, but also they let me change the look of him. As a fanboy I’ve always been like, 'That dude with the shiny skin is not fucking Colossus.' He should be this monstrous guy, and they actually let me make him seven-and-a-half feet tall."
Which is why the CGI was necessary. Colossus needs to be towering. He needs to be forceful. And in action, he looks like this:
Deadpool will be in theaters next February. As for Daniel Cudmore, he will be part of Warcraft, but isn’t expected to show up in X-Men: Apocalypse. Our loss?
