Throughout the journey of X-Men’s most popular member Wolverine, Jean Grey has always been a character that has been able to really get under the mutant’s skin. From their first meeting to Jean’s untimely death in The Last Stand, fans watched the often tough nut Logan really is vulnerable with Grey.
So when the third Wolverine movie, Logan, was made, it was a surprise to not see Jean Grey being a part of Logan’s demons. Her death had been a part of Wolverine’s deepest regrets and seemed to be the one constant ghost that haunted him. James Mangold confessed that Jean Grey was also included in Logan, but was ultimately cut out from the film because it altered the tone of the movie. Mangold told Empire Magazine:
“I sketched out different conversations for that dinner scene and one of them went to a much darker place. Mrs Munson asks Logan if he’s married, and Charles says he was – but he killed her. Of course, he wasn’t really married, but what that then spawns is Charles waxing poetic about Jean Grey, and it’s a really cool moment. Both Hugh and Patrick were amazing. The problem was, it created an incredibly powerful lead brick in the middle of the only moment in the movie where there was a breather. Even I, with my taste for the dark, felt that it was one too many. Things go pretty shitty within seconds after that. I think [the deleted scene] will make it to the Blu-ray.”
Jean Grey was not the only mutant that was cut out. The X-Men’s death, which was Professor X’s responsibility was also a big reason for his pathetic state in the movie, but viewers never saw the death scene. As Mangold said, having too many players also lead to too many unanswered questions.
