“X-Men: Days of Future Past” writer Simon Kinberg explained to The Daily Beast why Anna Paquin’s Rogue scene ended up on the cutting room floor.
Kinberg explained the scene was the “biggest cut” they made in the film because it did not add to the story. For the most part, “Days of Future Past” is a fast-paced story, which doesn’t leave room for too many extras. The mutants are racing against time to stop the creation of Sentinels thus ending a terrible war.
“The Rogue/Anna Paquin scene was by far the biggest cut we made, and that was more my fault than anything,” Kinberg told The Daily Beast. “When I was crafting the script, I wanted to create a subplot for old Charles and old Eric — Patrick [Stewart] and Ian [McKellen] — to have a mini-mission together, one final adventure. And that’s what the Rogue sequence was — that they went to retrieve Rogue.”
The writer also dished details about the scene to explain why it didn’t necessarily fit in the “Days of Future Past” story line, but didn’t confirm if fans will ever get to see the scene for themselves.
“It felt like it didn’t come from the spine of the film, it was an appendage where I just wanted to see the old guys get in the X-Jet for one last ride. It was a narrative detour, and in a film with this much momentum and narrative flow, you can’t afford any detours.”
Now that “X-Men: Days of Future Past” has been released, Kinberg is excited for the possible appearance of Gambit in the “X-Men” franchise.
"Gambit is still in-motion and being figured out," Kinberg said. "Channing made it known that it was a character that he loved and would love to play, and all the people who work on the X-Men movies are huge fans of his, so the notion of him playing it is exciting. I'm more fascinated by anti-heroes, and Gambit is one of those.
"I don't know why he wasn't explored in the original X-Men movies," he added. "Maybe the reason why was because they wanted to focus on Rogue/Bobby or the platonic Rogue/Wolverine relationship, and maybe there were too many similarities between Wolverine and Gambit, so in order to make it a Wolverine-centric franchise they had to cut him loose."
