wonder how Beast would've turned out

[Superwoman Prime]

had Singer stayed on board. Maybe he would have been aesthetically reinvented to be more "modern" and "realistic".

 

[[A]]

 

[Superwoman Prime]

That's pretty realistic.

 

[Retroman]

A couple qoutes on what his version of Beast would have looked like.

Press: I don't know if you're aware of this, but there were some character sketches of Beast from the first film that were leaked out, and the comic artists adapted Beast's look so he more closely resembled the film. And now your designs are similar to what Beast used to look like.

Dyas: The thing about Beast was that you had to make sure he didn't look too much like Wolverine. There was a real issue there. And at the same you don't want to turn him into a big monkey, or the Incredible Hulk. I have a feeling that if a [third] movie comes up, there will be a lot more development work on Beast. As for Nightcrawler, it was very important to get the hands and the feet absolutely right. The only thing that the writers added that's not shown here is that Nightcrawler has lots of religious tattooing all over his body. It's something the writers were pushing. I don't think it ever appeared in the comics.

October 22, 2002 —

Later in the day, [Production Designer Guy] Dyas discussed the matter of the mutant-hunting mechs, [The Sentinels]. "I did lots of sketches on Sentinels. There were three designs we came up with and one was what we ultimately decided upon, but Fox said no." It's hard to imagine what they could dream up in a digital effects age that would cause budget-conscious Fox to tank the Sentinels, but Dyas remained upbeat. "It was cool, they were going to attack the White House." The scene now involves more traditional military forces. He also hinted at the possibility of an X-Men movie art book, so perhaps with a little luck, what didn't make it to the screen we'll be able to pick up at a bookshop.

The book seems a given, considering that Dyas and Co. produced over 3,000 pieces of art, many of which are from Dyas himself. The walls of one room were covered with a selection of art to show us and the results are a mix of heart-stopping and heart-breaking. One of the first debates of pre-production was what mutants would come on board  Beast, Colossus, or Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler won out, perhaps because of budget considerations, but Dyas' concept work on Beast and Colossus remains, pinned to a wall somewhere in Burnaby. Using a photographed male model and then adding photoshop details, the results are amazing, but obviously expensive (either in time or money). The steel physique of Colossus wasn't the guy-covered-in-metal look we're familiar with in the comics, but rather a more anatomical effect, where the muscles underneath are steel. With the skin stripped away during transformation, the effect is powerful and grotesque.

March 18, 2003 —

From CFQ Magazine's interview with Bryan Singer on what to expect in a third X-Men installment:

I love Beast as a character, and I'd like to have him in the next movie. He will have to be done with CG, because makeup would just take too much time. I'd also love to do something with the Danger Room, but that didn't work out.

Pick up the magazine for the full interview and a great X2 article! The images from the issue can be found in the CountingDown to X2 Image Gallery.


Source: CFQ Magazine

May 7, 2003 —

X2 Production Designer Guy Dyas took some time to talk exclusively to CountingDown about some of the visual concepts that were cut from X2 but could still likely appear in X3 - here's a taste...:

Beast: Beast was so close to making it into X2 that I'm almost certain that he'll appear in the next film...The challenge with Beast is that most of the time in the comics he's blue and has a very similar hairstyle to Wolverine's. This meant that we needed to set him apart by accentuating his most Beast like characteristics. We tried to do this by giving him more of a blue-grey tint, covering him with a layer of fine hair and by making him extremely muscular.

SOURCE: 1 2 3 4

 

[katie_girl09]

Probably not as well as he did turn out.

 

[Mike555]

Better and i am 100 percent sure about this.

 

[X-Maniac]

It's not such a mystery as people think.

Concept art for Beast is in one of the tie-in books.

 

[insane polaris]

Does anyone have a copy of Singer's beast concept??. I would love to see it.

 

[X-Maniac]

Why not just buy The Art of... books for the X-Men films?

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I remember seeing his concepts for X1 and they were pretty cool, if my memory serves me right, it was Beast pre-furry that was planned for X1, I would have liked to see it.

Beast for the most part in X3 was one of the best aspects of the movie though.

 

[Deaths Head II]

I think he would have looked fine even if he would have looked different from his comic version. Mystique and Nightcrawler looked very different but still looked impressive.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

Why not just buy The Art of... books for the X-Men films?

I don't have disposable income right now.

I'll look for it on Google.

 

[SuperFerret]

Probably not as well as he did turn out.

What she said. Blue Frasier was the best thing about X3, and definitely my favorite part of the X-Movies.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

I'm not finding any concept art for Beast on Google. I've tried:

beast "concept art" films "x-men"
beast concept art x-men
beast "x-men 3" concept art "bryan singer"
beast x-men concept art
"the art of" x-men films "concept art"

 

[Andreth]

wait, what?
I had no idea there was an art concept for Singer's beast, well, I think he was the only thing that I truly loved about X3

 

[insane polaris]

I dont know if this is an early Singer or Ratner design.

 

[Retroman]

^^Yup, that's from the Ratner film.

It's not such a mystery as people think.

Concept art for Beast is in one of the tie-in books.

Does anyone have a copy of Singer's beast concept??. I would love to see it.

As far as i know Dyas' Beast concepts were never released.

2003-05-07
We designed a lot of new characters and environments for X2. Some made it into the final film and others will be saved for future episodes. Basically the designs that didn't make it in the film were:

The Danger Room and the Danger room control room (where someone can monitor & supervise the training sessions)
Beast and Beast's laboratory
Angel and Archangel
The interior of Alkali Lake's abandoned base, which included some very intricate prison cells and a giant cylindrical room where a big fight sequence was going to happen between Toad and Nightcrawler, a breathtaking mid-air battle.
A land vehicle that was going to come out of the cargo area of the X-Jet.
A secret level in the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

http://www.countingdown.com/features/?feature_id=3037579

I remember seeing his concepts for X1 and they were pretty cool, if my memory serves me right, it was Beast pre-furry that was planned for X1, I would have liked to see it.

Beast for the most part in X3 was one of the best aspects of the movie though.

Agreed though i wasn't too crazy about the look.

Here's an interesting Singer qoute re Beast back when the first X-Men was in preproduction.

Published on Friday, August 14, 1998 - 10:44am

Singer offered his takes on the various characters:

Beast: "Beast is great. Beast is (pause) Spock! You have to understand I'm a Spock freak. You have to understand Spock is the greatest character."

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=1862

 

[insane polaris]

I think i would have preferred a bit darker blue for Beast.

i remember watching the Extras for X2, and Singer spent ages trying to get the right colour for Nightcrawler. Using multiple layers of blues.

But Beast looked like it was just one colour blue painted all over.

 

[X-Maniac]

As far as i know Dyas' Beast concepts were never released.

Hmmm. Can't find it in The Art of... books. Saw it somewhere though, i'm sure. Beast had very long arms, like an ape, and was grey.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

was just looking through the concept art off the DVD
these were the only thing I could find for possible concept art

 

[insane polaris]

That reminds me of X-men Tas Beast. I probably would be scaary to see kelsey Grammer like this lol.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

if this was back in x1, Kelsey Grammer might not of even been in the role

 

[X-Maniac]

^^^ I think the third image from the top is the one I was referring to, that must be where I saw it. Thanks for solving the mystery, I've spent ages scouring books and magazine articles for what I had vaguely recalled.

 

[Mike555]

To bad beast and blob never appeared in the movie *sigh*.

 

[Retroman]

Hmmm. Can't find it in The Art of... books. Saw it somewhere though, i'm sure. Beast had very long arms, like an ape, and was grey.

What i was referring to wasn't the artwork Spider-Fan posted (those are from X1) but the Beast designs that Guy Dyas created for X2. Unlike Angel/Archangel those were never published in the books or shown on the dvd. I could have saved you the trouble by clarifying that.

if this was back in x1, Kelsey Grammer might not of even been in the role

And in a way it's good they waited because he's perfect to play the part.