We all knew that a significant amount of footage was cut from X-Men: Days Of Future Past. After all, an actress like Anna Paquin usually doesn't get top billing in a blockbuster when they have no lines. So where did all that footage go? It likely went to a planned director's cut, one that may be on the way for the year's highest grossing film.
Producer Lauren Shuler-Donner confirmed that we would see an extended version of X-Men: Days Of Future Past quite soon with deleted material put back into the film. From Twitter:
Of course, that's one producer firing off a single Tweet, and not necessarily indicative of what we're going to see. The bulk of the deleted material from X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Anna Paquin's scenes, likely stem from the sequence where Wolverine flails during his time traveling and accidentally stabs Kitty Pryde, leaving her with a gaping wound. In the film, she just cowboys up and continues her phasing of Wolverine through time. But in the original version, things played out a little differently.
Apparently Rogue was originally to be recruited by the group to somehow save Kitty after the accident. From things that we have read, this involved something of a prison break, as the X-Men plucked Rogue from bondage in order to bring her to China. This also involved a bit of romantic tension, as Iceman was recruiting one ex-girlfriend to save the life of another. Producers felt that Rogue providing a third-act stop like this was something of a deus ex machina that eliminated some of the suspense from the future sequences, and, to cut the time down, eliminated Paquin's role to a wordless cameo. But at the very least this sequence (or sequences) would have finally, over the course of seven movies, given Rogue something to do, and Oscar-winner Paquin something to play.
The guess is that the extended cut would hit DVD later this year, probably following a more formal Blu-Ray release of the film sans deleted footage. But the movie was wildly popular amongst a certain contingent of fans. Maybe Fox has the muscle for some sort of exclusive theatrical showing? The footage that was excised certainly sounds substantial, and the chance to see the gang in one more action sequence could be worth enough to charge fans to see it again. Maybe there's even more deleted footage. Maybe a further tease of the villain Apocalypse. At the very least, time travel movies require a ton of exposition, so maybe there are a lot of talking heads in the longer version of the film. But maybe there's some more Bishop, more Colossus, more action. Hopefully we find out soon.
