Sigourney Weaver Was Almost Cast as One of the Most Powerful Marvel Telepaths in X-Men 3
Besides being nominated for three Academy Awards, Sigourney Weaver has won numerous other accolades in her career spanning over four decades. Superhero franchises such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe have slowly taken over the entirety of Hollywood.
Sigourney Weaver also got her chance to shine in the Marvel series The Defenders which was released in 2017. However, she could have gotten her chance to work in a superhero project a long time ago in the third installment of the X-Men franchise.
Sigourney Weaver Was Almost Cast In X-Men 3
Bryan Singer wanted to cast Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost in X-Men 3 aka X-Men: The Last Stand. However, before he could implement that idea of his, he departed from the film in favor of working on Superman Returns and the role went to January Jones.
In an interview with the Canadian Press (via SUPERHEROHYPE), X-Men 2 screenwriter Dan Harris, who also left with Singer to work on Superman, revealed the director’s initial plans to launch a new comic character, played by an A-list actor, in the third installment:
“We were going to do ‘X-Men 3’ for a little while and our big secret or coup was — and it’s not going to happen so it’s OK — we wanted to have a character that was Emma Frost, a famous ‘X-Men’ character. She’s called the White Queen. We were going to ask Sigourney [Weaver] to be it. She was an empath in our version of the movie, which means she could control people’s emotions.”
Sigourney Weaver Was Cast In A Different Superhero Project
Ironically, Sigourney Weaver was cast as the villain Alexandra in the 2017 Marvel miniseries The Defenders which features the superheroes Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones. The series did not have a great overall viewership but it has an average rating of 6.6 out of 10 on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
Showrunner Marco Ramirez once told Entertainment Weekly that Weaver was the perfect fit for the character of Alexandra, saying:
“Sigourney is the kind of person you can buy as the smartest person in the room, who you can also buy as a person holding a flamethrower. Her character is a very powerful force in New York City. She’s everything Sigourney is: sophisticated, intellectual, dangerous.”
After Dan Harris explained what was in store for Sigourney Weaver in X-Men 3, the Avatar actress had good-naturedly quipped with a response that implied that Harris write her a role in Superman Returns. Although Harris, in fact, did not do that, he made sure to cast her in his directorial debut drama Imaginary Heroes.
Source: SUPERHEROHYPE, Entertainment Weekly
