X-Men Origins: Magneto (found production material of cancelled Marvel film; 2004-2009)
X-Men Origins: Magneto was a proposed film in Fox's popular X-Men series, adapting the famed Marvel comics. As is obvious from the title, the film was going to depict the origin story of Erik Lehnsherr, codenamed Magneto, a mutant with the ability to control metals and the magnetic field. The film's storyline would have been based around a young Magneto, growing up in Auschwitz and then hunting Nazis in the years after liberation from the camp. During this time, he would have also met Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, whose ideology of peaceful mutant-human co-operation clashes with Erik's own beliefs.
The film was green-lit in 2004, produced by Avi Arad and Laura Shuler Donner, with a script written by Sheldon Turner,[1] and intended for a 2006 release. It was pushed to 2007 as David Goyer was set to direct,[2] but production of the film eventually fell to the wayside for X-Men Origins: Wolverine (dir. Gavin Hood, 2009), and was soon cancelled entirely.[3]
Ian McKellen, famous for playing Magneto in the first phase of Fox's X-Men movies was confirmed to reprise his role for this film. Filmmakers had previously used a 'digital facelift' for his role in X-Men: The Last Stand, but by 2007, McKellen was set to only make an appearance during the film's opening and closing sequences.[4] In 2009, McKellen claimed he would not be reprising the role, and production stalled on the film indefinitely, in part due to the Writer's Guild of America strike.
The film's focus on Magneto was later incorporated into the highly successful X-Men: First Class (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2011). While the film was teased for over 5 years since the lukewarm reception of 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, no production stills, script excerpts, press kits or promotional materials have been leaked onto the Internet.