{"id":368134,"date":"2026-03-27T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/368134\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T13:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:57:09","slug":"26-years-later-james-marsden-opens-up-about-his-infamous-x-men-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/368134\/","title":{"rendered":"26 years later, James Marsden opens up about his infamous X-Men line"},"content":{"rendered":"

X-Men<\/a> is full of iconic dialogue, but there\u2019s one line that defines the 2000 superhero movie above all others: \u201cWhat would you prefer, yellow spandex?<\/a>\u201d Spoken by Cyclops (James Marsden) just before Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) suits up in black leather as a member of the X-Men for the first time, those six words signaled a broader cultural shift towards more serious, grounded superhero movies \u2014 even if some hardcore comic book fans didn\u2019t appreciate the change.<\/p>\n

A quarter of a century later, Marsden is set to return to the role<\/a> in Avengers: Doomsday<\/a>, and an early teaser for the movie shows Cyclops in a much more comics-accurate outfit. So when Polygon had a chance to interview the actor for his latest movie, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice<\/a>, we couldn\u2019t resist asking how he feels about those infamous six words today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think it was meant in any sort of bad nature,\u201d Marsden says. \u201cIt was a little bit of a jab at \u2014 maybe it wasn’t a jab, but it was a sort of playful remark about maybe previous movies where people were running around in over-the-top costumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Avengers_
\n Avengers: Doomsday features Marsden in Cyclops’ classic superhero outfitImage: Marvel Studios<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, the choice to put the X-Men in black leather was made by studio executives who worried colorful spandex would scare off a mainstream audience. Decades later, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, who worked as an associate producer on X-Men, explained the decision<\/a> at a press conference for 2024\u2019s Deadpool & Wolverine: \u201cThere were studio execs in charge who knew that The Matrix had been a big hit, and they wore black leather so, \u2018Put them in black leather!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During filming, director Bryan Singer added Marsden\u2019s line to the script to get ahead of any possible blowback from fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a playful little lob to the comic book fans,\u201d Marsden confirms. \u201cIt was a moment of levity that allowed the fans to get a giggle out of our discussions about what the heck we’re going to be wearing in this movie. We’re in black leather in the first film, and it’s not comic-book-accurate, but we wanted to do something a little different and more grounded in reality. These are suits that you could see somebody wearing while walking around the street or riding a motorcycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
\n X’Men ’97 pokes fun at the X-Men (2000) outfitsImage: Marvel Animation<\/p>\n

As for whether X-Men\u2019s \u201cyellow spandex\u201d line was all a big setup that Avengers: Doomsday is finally about to pay off, that\u2019s not how the Cyclops actor sees it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think there was any foretelling there,\u201d Marsden says. \u201cI don’t think we knew where all of this was going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is streaming now on Hulu. Avengers: Doomsday releases Dec. 18 in theaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"X-Men is full of iconic dialogue, but there\u2019s one line that defines the 2000 superhero movie above all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-368134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}