Olivia Munn's Psylocke Almost Wasn't In 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Because Of [Spoiler]

X-Men: Apocalypse isn't even in theaters yet and the people who made it are already talking about the stuff they decided not to put in the movie. Movie news is weird. Anyway's today's tidbit of interesting trivia comes from writer/producer Simon Kinberg, who revealed that Olivia Munn's Psylocke originally wasn't in the movie and was added at the last second because...

Well, that would be a spoiler. A minor spoiler. Something that probably won't harm your viewing experience at all. Still, you be the judge of whether or not you want to read on.

In a new interview with CinemaBlend, Kinberg shared the details. In the film, Psylocke is one of Apocalypse's "Four Horseman," a team of mutants recruited to help him with his whole "destroy the world" scheme." However, in early drafts the screenplay, that quartet consisted of Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), and...Professor X (James McAvoy)? If that sounds odd, Kinberg agrees with you:

The one person we didn't know was Psylocke, and the reason why is because originally in the script we sort of...I don't know why we made this decision, but we knew that Professor X was abducted in the middle of the movie, and we thought that almost counted as a fourth Horseman. And so that's the way we constructed the original draft of the script. There wasn't going to be a fourth one. The 'surprise' was that Xavier was the fourth Horseman. And then when we were working on the script, Bryan and I at one particular point, pretty late in the process, said, 'He's not really a Horseman; he's not doing anything in the third act of the movie.'

So Kinberg and director Bryan Singer looked to past X-Men comics, read up on the various characters who have been part of Apocalypse's entourage over the years, and decided that Psylocke would be a pretty cool choice. As luck would have it, Kinberg had recently met with Olivia Munn about potentially playing the female lead in Deadpool (a role she decided to turn down), so all they had to do was reach out and ask if she'd be willing to put on that purple outfit. And that's that.

X-Men: Apocalypse opens in many international markets this week before opening in domestic theaters on May 27, 2016. Here's the official synopsis:

Following the critically acclaimed global smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel's X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.