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Bonus! The "Lost" Marvel X-Men film that never was
🕑 Added 2025-09-07 16:00:10 +0000 UTCBack in the 1980s, the guys who wrote Conan the Destroyer wrote an X-Men film that was supposed to be the launch of a Marvel movie universe ... but then the studio fell on hard times, the script was shelved, and the project was lost to the sands of time. But not completely lost, because I dug up an ooooold magazine article with a detailed synopsis of the movie. And so for this week's bonus video, I will regale you with a tale of what might've been: Xavier as an action hero, evil Easter Island heads, a lesbian vampire, and tickle fights.
Plus! A little look at Gomez Addams as you've never seen him before.
And don't forget to join us today for the start of our Victor/Victoria watch-along! It starts today, Sunday Sept 7, at noon pacific/3pm eastern at http://twitch.tv/mattbaume
Backup link to the bonus video: https://youtu.be/UoJvOFM58oM
Comments
Kieran Brackbill
Just...wow. This script is completely bonkers. Sounds like it was fueled by a whole lot of cocaine and just throwing a bunch of ideas into the proverbial blender.
Matt Baume
Oh that’s interesting — I guess they took a popular book and just embroidered. And that’s a good guess about Kitty, like how some cartoon characters aren’t allowed to be shown using certain weapons.
Paul Anderson
The script is clearly inspired by Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) in which Xavier recruits new mutants from around the world such as Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler to rescue the original X-Men from the mysterious island Krakoa. It would still make a good basis for a movie, with some polish, since it introduces two ensembles and Krakoa later gives us the comics' best era. But the tickling? Years after this script Magik dreamed of Kitty Pryde tickling her, subtext that was not left unexplored. My best guess is for a family film it was a non-violent way audience POV teenager Kitty could defeat the big bad after using her powers to sneak up undetected. "Subtext that was not left unexplored" means another queer X-Men arc is Kitty Pryde's long simmering bisexual tension with Magik and Rachel Summers, finally confirmed when she kissed a girl in 2020. She is currently dating a non-mutant woman in Chicago.
Matt Baume
I can't believe it ends like Benny Hills sketch
claire bee
Now here's a fun little thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmS76Bsnpn8 There's no indication that the main character is queer - he seems to be just in it for the money - but it's still nice to see a man in drag who isn't evil or ridiculous in a film this early; according to the description there was a tradition of it in the music halls, which might have made it easier to get away with. It's not even really ugly drag, either, as he's supposed to be able to pass not only as a woman but as an unusually attractive one!
