10 Things The X-Men Franchise Wishes It Could've Done Differently

6. Not Relied On Stunt Casting

The X-Men movies have undeniably roped in some marvelous actors to give a bevy of iconic performances, especially Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and both the young and old iterations of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender/Ian McKellen).

But the series is also noted for its tendency towards stunt casting, especially in recent years.

Even if you can accept one-off appearances such as Vinnie Jones embarrassingly playing the Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand and will.i.am appearing as Kestrel in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the series eventually deferred to casting popular performers regardless of their actual suitability to the part.

The most infamous example is Jennifer Lawrence playing Mystique in the prequel movies, for despite her undeniable acting talent, her enthusiasm for playing the character quickly waned, and she more-or-less sleepwalked her way to a paycheck in the last few films.

She was cast because she was the "It girl" of the moment, rather than because something about her inherently seemed right for Mystique.

Similarly in X-Men: First Class, January Jones was cast as Emma Frost simply due to her success on the TV show Mad Men, yet her outrageously wooden performance failed to indicate how she made it past the screen test phase.

And then there's Sophie Turner, a household name from her work on Game of Thrones, who was cast as Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse for that reason and no other.

Between Turner's wonky attempt at an American accent and generally tepid performance across Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, it was another case of an of-the-moment actor being cast for cynical, cash-grabbing reasons.

At least Taylor Swift never got cast as Dazzler though, right?

Given that none of the stunt casting really ended up paying off on an artistic level, it surely would've made sense to defer to lesser-known actors who were actually right for the roles.