Bryan Singer? Given what he did to Joss' script for the first X-Men movie, color me surprised. Left two lines of dialog from what Joss has said, and one of them was Halle's awful "toad" bit.

Nothing against Bryan Singer - I've liked pretty much all of his movies, but Joss had about as many kind things to say about X-Men as he did about Alien Resurrection.

Bryan Singer? Given what he did to Joss' script for the first X-Men movie, color me surprised. Left two lines of dialog from what Joss has said, and one of them was Halle's awful "toad" bit.

Ah, but relationships in these businesses are often fluid.

Bryan Singer is going to write 12 issues of Ultimate X-men

Joss Whedon is going to write 12 issues of Astonishing X-men.

The titles are set in two seperate areas of the Marvel line (Ultimate X-men in the Ultimate universe, while Astonishing is in Mainstream Marvel universe) so the two writers' titles will have nothing to do with each others.

one of them was Halle's awful "toad" bit.

The delivery messed up that line, though. It hadn't occurred to me until I read the Onion interview.

JW: [re X-Men] there are a couple of lines left in that are out of context and make no sense, or are delivered so badly, so terribly... There's one line that's left the way I wrote it.

O: Which is?

JW: "'It's me.' 'Prove it.' 'You're a dick.'" Hey, it got a laugh.

O: It's funny that the only lines I really remember from that movie are that one and Storm's toad comment.

JW: Okay, which was also mine, and that's the interesting thing. Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand. [Adopts casual, bored tone.] "You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Then, after he gets electrocuted, "Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else." But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona. [Strident, ringing voice.] "The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!" That's the thing that makes you go crazy. At least "You're a dick" got delivered right. The worst thing about these things is that, when the actors say it wrong, it makes the writer look stupid.

More reasons to hate Halle.

I thought, from what Joss had said, that part of the reason his entire script got tossed was that they were already pretty far along in pre-production when he did his rewrite. That they had loved his script but it didn't gel with where they already were.

Then again, I was really drunk so I could be remembering wrong.

The delivery messed up that line, though.

I have a hard time imagining that line as good in any delivery, but I do agree that Halle's couldn't have been any more wrong, which is why I said "Halle's awful 'toad' bit" as opposed to Joss'. Just to be clear.

I can see the line as being completely unremarkable, delivered as intended. Which would do wonders for Joss's box score, since the "You're a dick" was hands down my favourite of the movie. "The same thing that happens to anything else." keeps his average squarely at zero, since it was the only other line I remembered, for opposite reasons.

But, it does mean I got to see Joss trash Halle in print, so it may almost have been worth it. Especially if she's too special to make #3 and gets recast.

"You're a dick" was definitely one of the best lines in the first movie, so yeah, Joss can hold his head up high on that one.

"I am psychic, you know," was also a pretty memorable line, IMHO.

Kitty Pryde? Is that Shadowcat? (showing knowledge of X-Men that is lacking). Do you guys see the influences of Kitty on Buffy?