Anna Paquin Almost Appeared as Rogue in 'The Wolverine'

The Wolverine was initially pushed as a standalone film that wouldn't lean on the prior X-men films, but that wasn't really how it played out. Whether it was due to 20th Century Fox moving forward on their plans to expand the mutant-verse with X-men: First Class and other features, the film draws significantly from the events of X-men: The Last Stand, with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) still agonizing over Jean Grey's death. Famke Janssen made numerous cameo appearances as Jean, haunting Wolverine's dreams and driving him towards the edge of madness. But as it turns out, the story could have been very different, as one of the early drafts had a different X-woman making her return....

While talking to Creative Screenwriting, co-writers Scott Frank and Mark Bomback revealed that Rogue (Anna Paquin) would have made an appearance, and it sounds as if they had some solid ideas for her pairing with Wolverine before deciding to change course....

Bomback: "I love Rogue and I just think that there's something about this idea that Rogue is tremendously empathetic but incapable of safe human contact. That always moved me and I thought that's what really got to the heart of what makes the X-Men franchise so unique. So I was trying to do something with Rogue in the script. I even had a set of ideas that the old man possessed a version of Rogue's power and that was going to be indicated by a white stripe in his hair. Eventually it became very goofy, and I threw it out because I started realizing throughout the script that it became more problematic than cool."

Wolverine has always had something of a mentor relationship with Rogue, as well as other young mutants like Jubilee and Kitty Pryde, but her presence in this particular story wouldn't have made any sense and she would have been lost in the shuffle. Besides, they capture the nature of the relationship pretty well in Wolverine's partnership with Yukio.  In the comics, Rogue plays a crucial role as Wolverine battles the Silver Samurai and Viper, but the source material is very different from what was depicted on screen.