X-Men: The Last Stand Director Quit Over A Nasty Trick Played On Halle Berry [NYCC]

"I don't like boring, serious films; I like entertaining escapism," filmmaker Matthew Vaughn said of his films at the New York Comic Con 2023 "Matthew Vaughn: From Kickass to Kingsman to Argylle" panel. Best known for directing genre-subverting movies like "Kingsman" (he and comic creator Mark Millar thought James Bond was getting "too serious") and "Kick-Ass" (a deconstruction of super-suited vigilante fantasy, also penned by Millar), Vaughn prefers his action told with style.

While reflecting on his career since the 2007 film "Layer Cake," Vaughn reiterated his plans for "Kingsman 3" and "Kick-Ass: Reboot," with the latter starting filming next year and going a much different route than his original "Kick-Ass" film. He mentioned too that he's directing a musical that he can't talk about yet ("Elton John's catalog [referring to his producing work in 'Rocketman'] is pretty hard to beat"). He also dropped some interesting "Kingsman" trivia: Daniel Kaluuya and John Boyega were among Vaughn's top picks for Eggsy, the lead Kingsman. Though Vaughn went with Taron Egerton (star of "Rocketman"), he praised Boyega's and Kaluuya's impressive auditions.

Easily the most interesting reveal, however, concerned his would-have-been director's chair on "X-Men: The Last Stand." It's no secret that Vaughn left the directing position because he felt like his own vision couldn't breathe, having told The Telegraph, "I didn't want to be the guy accused of making a bad "X-Men" movie." But at NYCC, he also shared another dimension to the story.

Vaughn recounted an experience that stuck with him and shaped his views on Hollywood. He walked into an executive's office and saw an "X-Men: The Last Stand" script that was "a lot fatter" than the draft he was familiar with. Though told not to worry about it, he read it anyway, being a director who felt he had to worry about it.

"He wouldn't tell me, so I grabbed it literally — it was like a crazy moment — opened the first page, it said, 'Africa. Storm. Kids dying of no water. She creates a thunderstorm that saves the children.'  I'm like 'Okay, pretty cool idea. What is this?' He [the executive] said, 'It's Halle Berry's script.' I [said], 'Okay, she hasn't signed up yet.' '[It's] what she wants it to be ... once she signs up, we'll throw it in the bin.' Wow, you're going to do that to an Oscar-winning actress playing Storm?' So I quit, at that point, because I thought, 'I'm mincemeat.'"

Brett Ratner ended up taking over as director, and Vaughn reflected that this incident drove him to think, "Hollywood, they do some stuff well, but not in my style." He would later direct the 2011 movie "X-Men: First Class." Though Vaughn would have directed the following 2014 "X-Men: Days of Future Past," he explained that he didn't because "Hollywood forgot to tell me, after I wrote the damn thing, that legally Bryan [Singer] got to direct it first. I went, 'You know what, I'm not mucking around with Hollywood anymore. I'm going to do 'Kingsman.'"

Apple spent $200 million acquiring the distribution rights to "Argylle," Vaughn's "lockdown movie" in his words. In this film (screenplay by Jason Fuchs), spy novelist Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is churning through writer's block over her next novel, centering on the fictional agent Argylle (Henry Cavill). Turns out, Elly's books mirror a real-life spy organization and can predict the future, making her an unwitting prophet and a target for unscrupulous organizations. Fate drags her along an adventure with the cat-allergic agent, Aiden (Sam Rockwell). At the panel, Vaughn compared this to an imaginative scenario where J.K. Rowling, author of "Harry Potter," is told by a wizard that her books are real.

The panel rolled an exclusive clip of Elly's encounter with Aiden, which turns from an awkward author-meets-fan meeting into a chaotic set-piece. I can't give away what's in it, but let's just say that her fantasies of spies intermingle with grittier reality, and the screenplay even addresses Cavill's over-the-top haircut as Argylle. The clip and trailer promise a silly, fun romp. For those who already don't know, Vaughn also told the NYCC crowd that he hired his daughter's cat, Chip, after the firing of a "professional" cat that was too expensive and hard to work with. (Talk about nepotism.) Despite being a dog person, he admitted that his kid's cat won him over.

There is an upcoming "Argylle" book, a tie-in marketing gimmick written by an "Elly Conway" herself (who may not really exist). Its Penguin profile marks an April release, but Vaughn at the panel said it's slated for January 2024, while holding up an actual copy. "Argylle" is set to land in theaters on February 2, 2024.