Matthew Vaughn Wanted to Make a Young Wolverine Movie

As one of the most famous members of Marvel’s X-Men, James Howlett – aka Wolverine – has had a more than impressive career on page and screen. Now, X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn revealed that he wanted to pull out a pair of adamantium claws and take a stab at doing his own young Wolverine movie.

For 17 years and 9 movies, the world of X-Men movies was gifted with Hugh Jackman’s performance as the clawed Canadian. However, with Jackman waving goodbye to the role forever with Logan, there is a Wolverine-shaped hole in the X-verse. While Fox seems in no hurry to replace Jackman, it certainly sounds like Vaughn had planned on doing it a while back with his own take on Wolverine’s formative years.

Related: Logan is the First Oscars Screener Sent to Academy Voters

Speaking to Uproxx, the Kick-Ass and Kingsman director revealed why he dropped out of X-Men: Days of Future Past and his ambitious plans to give Wolverine more of a backstory than just that guy from Alkali Lake:

“The reason I haven’t done sequels in the past is they just weren’t exciting me. And on Days of Future Past, even though I co-wrote the bloody thing, the reason I bailed out of it is two things: First, I respect Bryan Singer hugely and X-Men is Bryan’s world and I feel he let me play in his sandbox. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my sandbox. I wanted my own sandbox. And, second, I didn’t want to do Days of Future Past next. I felt that one should be in a trilogy and Days of Future Past should be the finale of that story. I would have done a film in-between where you meet the young Wolverine and a new character, and then Days of Future Past became the young Wolverine and the old Wolverine and just really blow it out.”

Although Vaughn did manage to direct his own vision for the X-Men with the rebooted X-Men: First Class, it is sad that he didn’t get to realize his vision to reinvent Wolverine as well. Leaving Days of Future Past meant that he signed on to Kingsman: The Secret Service, but also that Bryan Singer once again took over the reins to the X-Men franchise. Audiences will never know what direction Vaughn would’ve taken his Wolverine movie – or if he was going to introduce that classic yellow and black lycra – but fans can bet that it would’ve been in keeping with his nostalgic vibes of First Class.

Also, let’s not forget what happened last time someone tried to tackle a Wolverine origin story. Now that Jackman is out, it is easy to imagine a reboot of the character with a younger version of James Howlett making his way onto screens, but just pray that the superhero genre has learned from the mistakes Origins.

Next: Hugh Jackman Compares Wolverine Role to Batman & Bond