After director Bryan Singer left X Men: The Last Stand in the fall of 2004, screenwriter Simon Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fantastic Four 1 and 2) and Zak Penn (X Men 2) had six months to complete two warring drafts, which would then be wedded into a "Frankenstein draft," said Kinberg. "Instead of competing as strangers, we decided to try to work together and present a united front." They duked it out with Twentieth Century Fox as they wedged both Joss Whedon's cure plot and Dark Phoenix into X Men 3. Penn became the tough bad cop, while Kinberg was "the scared kitten. Zak was my bodyguard." It sounds like Kinberg could take care of himself. When he wanted the studio to do things his way, he'd say, "I ran it by Hugh [Jackman], and he doesn't like it."