At WonderCon this past weekend, Steve sat down with Simon Kinberg to talk about the writer/producer's high-profile projects.  Among Kinberg's slate of films is X-Men: Days of Future Past, which opens next month.  During their conversation, Kinberg talked about deleted scenes as well as what's happening with Anna Paquin being in the film.  Four months ago, director Bryan Singer said her scenes had landed on the cutting room floor, but last week a representative for 20th Century Fox said she was still in the movie.  Attempting to clear up the confusion, Steve asked Kinberg about it point blank.  Kinberg replied, "She’s not in the big main sub-plot that we shot with her in it. That’s all I can say."  When pressed to answer if she at least has a cameo, Kinberg laughed and replied, "I can't."

Hit the jump for my theory on how she could still be in the movie, and to learn about the X-Men: Days of Future Past deleted scenes including a subplot featuring the future Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen).  X-Men: Days of Future Past opens in 2D and 3D on May 23rd.  For more from Kinberg, click here for what he had to say about The Fantastic Four.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Here's my theory when it comes to Rogue: Since the X-Men will probably win by the end of the movie (they have a tendency to do that), the good timeline will be restored and there might be a montage where all the mutants return to a peaceful existence.  That's where we'll briefly see Paquin.  I'm assuming Kinberg refused to comment because the scene takes place at the end.

However, Kinberg did reveal that there was previously a lot more Rogue in the movie since she was involved in a sub-plot, although that sub-plot wasn't specifically intended to bring her into the movie.  Instead, Kinberg wanted to see more of the old Magneto and Xavier:

Where it was long was, it was probably about 20 minutes longer, maybe 25 minutes longer if that. Part of it was just the natural fat of, you know, an early cut of a movie versus a final cut of a movie. Things get refined. Part of it was, about ten minutes, I think, of sub-plot with Rogue in it that we cut out of the movie. So that was … the biggest chunk we took out of the film from first cut to final cut was the Rogue plot. And that was the sub-plot that has now been well-publicized, but that I created, not actually to bring Rogue into the movie, though that was a wonderful consequence, but more that I wanted to have, and this was in the early script phase, I wanted a mission for old Charles and old Erik, for Magneto and Xavier to go off on a mission together.

For a scene this long, I can't help but wonder if there might be an extended cut.  At the very least, I'd be surprised and disappointed if this didn't make the Blu-ray/DVD extras.  Some of the best moments in the franchise have been watching Stewart and McKellen play off each other, and I'd certainly like to see more of that.  However, Kinberg did have a good explanation about why it's not going to be in the final cut of Days of Future Past:

Just to see what that would look like. I mean, truly, seriously, it was like, “What would it be like to have Patrick and Ian on a road trip together?” And that was kind of, you know, it got condensed as I wrote it and then when we shot it, but it was just a sub-plot. It was a perfectly good sub-plot and people will see it one day, and Anna was great in it and it was well-directed; it just didn’t serve the overall story. And it didn’t, it never did, it was created outside the core story. As a result, when you watched the movie, you were like, “Why are we on this detour, on a movie that already has two time periods, two types of Sentinels, 10-12 main characters, just as a lark?” And so it ended up getting cut.

So if it's ever in an extended cut, that might play as a nice curiosity and the audience can judge if it slowed down the pacing or not.

Here's the video of Kinberg talking about the deleted scenes and Anna Paquin.  Look for more with Kinberg very soon.

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