2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the original X-Men movie and while that film is regarded as one of the best early examples of the comic book genre, it’s third installment X-Men: The Last Stand is considered one of the biggest stinkers in the franchise. While most remember that Rush Hour director Brett Ratner was hired to get the film past the finish line and released on time, Matthew Vaughn had been previously attached to direct and was deep in the casting process before he ultimately jumped ship. 

One of the key roles Vaughn filled before the exit was his pal Vinnie Jones in the Cain Marko aka Juggernaut, the pair had previously worked together on Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. 

Jones spoke with Comic Book revealing his massive disappointment throughout the production and how multiple promises were broken concerning his character along with being drastically cut-back from the original version he signed-up for. 

Mentioning that he had committed to three films. 

JONES: “I loved the role, but hopefully you can put it fucking right here, mate. I basically got mugged off. Matthew Vaughn signed me up, and it was a great role and a great script, and Juggernaut was a great character. I signed up for three of them, and that will show you how serious I was about it. Brett Ratner basically dissolved the character. I was in my fucking trailer half the time. It’s one of the most disappointing jobs I’ve been on as far as, you know, ‘What am I doing here?'”

“It wasn’t the same Juggernaut as I signed on for. They took his storyline away, they’d taken his character away, his dialogue. I had two big meetings with Brett about it, and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s coming. They’re writing stuff for you as we speak’ and it never fucking happened. Disappointment wise, that was probably one of the biggest. What’s upsetting is some of the fans blame me! It was fucking nothing to do with me! That role, I didn’t sign up for. The Juggernaut you saw was not the Juggernaut I signed on for with Matthew Vaughn, I’ll tell you that now. It upset me.”

Vinnie and Matthew would eventually reunite for Kingsman: The Golden Circle. 

Juggernaut would get a second shot on the big screen in Deadpool 2 as a CGI character. It remains to be seen if we’ll see the hulking character return in the Marvel Cinematic Universe given his crassness in the Deadpool universe. The characters are now at Marvel Studios/Disney allowing them to get a hard-reboot outside of Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson. 

Vaughn would also circle back to X-Men eventually with X-Men: First Class giving 20th Century Fox the blueprint for their string of prequel films. He’s voiced a desire to get involved with Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot but nothing has been made official as he’s busy overseeing the Kingsman franchise for 20th Century Studios. 

SOURCE: COMIC BOOK