Interesting Facts About X-Men 

 Television commercials designed to look like political campaign ads for the McCarthy-like character of Senator Kelly (played by Bruce Davison) began airing months before the release of X-MEN. The spots gave little indication that they were X-MEN movie commercials but urged viewers to "stop the X-Men" and log on to the Mutant Watch Web site. Even the Internet site itself contained made-up "anti-mutant" literature.

Director Bryan Singer initially wanted Russell Crowe to play Wolverine. However, Dougray Scott was cast as the clawed hero but bowed out to finish work on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2. The role of Wolverine finally went to Hugh Jackman. (Both Crowe and Jackman, coincidentally, are Australian.)

Jackman was notorious on the set for getting into his character. In order to create Wolverine's edgy disposition, he often took cold showers. And though the actors got along well, Jackman avoided Tyler Mane (Sabretooth) during shooting to create a sense of rivalry.

A total of 700 individual blades made of various materials were used for Wolverine's claws by Jackman and his stunt doubles.

X-MEN creator Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance when Senator Kelly emerges from the ocean on a crowded beach. Lee also appeared in MALLRATS, which references characters in X-MEN and other comics.

The visor worn by James Marsden in his role as Cyclops apparently impaired his vision so severely that he sometimes had to be led around the movie set.

Although Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen were both members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, X-MEN was their first film together. However, Stewart and McKellen had briefly acted together in Trevor Nunn's production of the play EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR.

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos had to repeatedly endure more than eight hours of makeup application for her role as the scaly blue-skinned shape-shifter Mystique.

Beast, the X-Men's resident blue-furred scientist, was originally set to appear in the movie but was not included in the shooting script. Some of his science-oriented traits were given to the character Jean Grey (Famke Janssen).

Young X-Men such as Iceman, Jubilee, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde make brief appearances during the scenes at Professor Xavier's school.

Ray Park (Toad), best known for his role as Darth Maul in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, mimics Darth Maul's fighting style in one of X-MEN's action sequences.

X-MEN cost only $75 million to make, a relatively small budget for a film that contains more than 450 special effects.