8 Sequels That Killed Off Heroes In Minutes

After having two very well-received films directed by Bryan Singer, 20th Century Fox got in a bit of a tizzy when Singer went off to direct a Superman film for a different studio. They refused to wait for him to return and instead embarked on finding a director capable of filling his shoes and meeting the pre-set deadline.

What they got was a Brett Ratner-directed X-Men film that wasn't exactly what fans had been expecting. James Marsden, who had been playing Cyclops for the last two films, was signed on to appear in the third film but was also being courted by Singer to appear in his Superman film. To accompany the filming schedules of both projects, Cyclops was simply killed off in the opening reel.

The filmmakers and producers tried to soften this blow a bit by including numerous scenes of him in this short span of time but he is essentially there to be sad about Jean's death, go to her underwater grave, and die an awful death. Cyclops was continuously shorted throughout the film series, never able to attain the kind of leadership role he always had in the comics, thanks in part to the popularity of a certain clawed mutant, but this took things to a new low.