Famke Janssen Explains How The X-Men Trilogy ‘Set The Tone’ For The Marvel Universe
The original Jean Grey weighs in on Marvel's beginnings.
Nowadays, if you haven't seen a new Marvel Studios movie you will be told by someone you’re living under a rock. Films and TV shows based on Marvel comic books are often among the most prevalent pop culture moments and each movie breaks box office record after record, most recently with Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s tough to remember a time when superhero movies were huge, but when the X-Men trilogy was hitting theaters there was nothing else like it being made.
With the comic book movie boom very much still in hyper speed, the X-Men’s original Jean Grey, Famke Janssen shared her perspective on the genre having been part of the dawn of the era. In her words to CinemaBlend:
Famke Janssen offers some great points about why the X-Men movies were so influential to where we are today with Marvel movies. They were perhaps the first movies of their kind to be rooted in reality and the world as we know it rather than be a live-action cartoon of comic book pages. Janssen continued:
It’s true. The X-Men movies were groundbreaking at the time for including a nearly even amount of men and women characters in the main cast. I mean we’re talking about Halle Berry’s Storm, Anna Paquin’s Rogue and Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique alongside Janssen. The early 00s was a time for experimentation for the superhero genre and the X-Men movies not only hold up today, they continued to forward her story in the franchise until just a few years ago.
Famke Janssen’s last appearance in the franchise was in 2014’s Days of the Future Past, but with her most recent project, Redeeming Love, some of her X-Men past caught up with her when one of her The Last Stand co-stars became her co-star again. Eric Dane, who played Multiple Man in the 2006 film recalled with CinemaBlend being on the set of the film early on in his career:
Dane fondly remembers being on the set of the massive Marvel project. He recalls the early impression the Jean Grey actress had on him as they shot some major sequences for The Last Stand. The pair star together in Redeeming Love, a romance film based on the book by Francine Rivers. Check out CinemaBlend’s review of the film and see Redeeming Love in theaters now.
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Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.