When it comes to Marvel superheroes, many fans around the world immediately think of Stan Lee when conversations about creators come up. However, in terms of the X-Men, one man that might be just as influential in that team’s history, if not moreso, is Chris Claremont. The comic book legend wrote the seminal arcs ‘Days of Future Past’ (which has it’s theatrical adaptation coming to theaters this weekend) and the ‘Dark Phoenix Saga’, among countless others, as well as created iconic characters like Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Rogue, Sabretooth, Psylocke, and Gambit. Basically, he shaped the X-Men into what we all know and love today. But what does he think of the movie versions of his beloved stories? He let everyone at the Motor City Comic Con over the weekend know exactly that and then some.

Claremont addressed a few of the non-Marvel Studios superhero films and shared his opinions about them. Starting with ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ (which he hasn’t seen yet, but has a cameo in), he expressed some high hopes for the latest installment of the Fox franchise:

“They got it right. At least in the title. They got big robots in it. It’s very 70′s. I don’t know what the TARDIS is doing in the White House, but that’s a totally different story. My basic feeling is that it’s probably the richest, most talented, most ‘box-office-holy-cow-cast’ I have ever seen. You can take any two members of that cast and build an award-winning successful movie. And they have! I think it’s way cool and we’ll know in a week.”

Then, after revealing that Darren Aronofsky’s people contacted him about ‘The Wolverine’ to look over Chris McQuarrie’s script, he revealed his feelings (and honestly everyone else’s feelings too) on ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’:

“There is the ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, which is 43 minutes of [Claremont pretends to dry heave] and about 20 minutes of ‘Not so bad.’ Let’s face it. Hugh Jackman – absolutely cool. ‘X-Men Origins’ was forced on the studios by Fox because it was thought that the general film going audience would not understand who he is or what he is or why he is. He needed an origin. My feeling was ‘Dude, it’s Hugh Jackman! Who cares?’ He walks out on-screen and we go, ‘That’s Wolverine!’ and the rest is irrelevant. But what do I know.”

Finally, he moves on to Sony and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’. While he doesn’t have many Spidey credits on his resume, he’s still allowed to have an opinion about other superhero movies. It just so happens that his is very different from mine. However, I can’t really argue with ‘Spider-Man 2’ being an awesome film:

“The problem with superhero movies is you hope you get ‘The Avengers’, but sometimes the reality is you get Spidey 2.2. I call it Spidey 2.2 because if you call it ‘Spider-Man 2’ people go, ‘Wait, do you mean the Spider-Man with Alfred Molina because that one was really good, you know?’ Yes, it was really good because it was directed by Sam Raimi who is really good. Sam foolishly had this attitude with Sony where he said ‘How about for the third movie we has LESS characters!’ and Sony was like ‘NOOOOO! WE WANT MORE CHARACTERS! 3 CHARACTERS IN THE THIRD, 4 IN THE FOURTH AND 5 IN THE FIFTH!’ Well, oddly enough, this is the fifth movie and what do we have? Sinister Six! Yes, six characters cause they can’t count. I’m making fun of Spidey because I can and because the X-Men movie hasn’t come out yet!”

I was lucky enough to attend a Q&A session with Claremont here in Philadelphia a little while back, so I can imagine that he had a number of great things to say in addition to these quotes from the Motor City Comic Con panel. But after ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ comes out this weekend, I wonder what he’ll think of the finished product. So until then, what do you think of his comments on ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Comic Book