X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX
FOR FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR SIMON KINBERG IT’S A SECOND STAB AT THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA. AS DAVE GOLDER LEARNS, HE’S PROMISING A DARKER, MORE INTENSE, MORE COSMIC EXPERIENCE FOR THE X-MEN’S LAST STAND AT FOX
The classic comic book storyline comes to the screen – again. We unleash the Phoenix force as the mutants clash in 1992.
Even in a cinematic landscape where superhero movies regularly retell the same origin stories over and over (here’s looking at you, spidey) audiences may have an uncanny sense of déjà vu with Dark Phoenix. hang on, hasn’t this franchise done this story already? well, yeah, back in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). But there are two good reasons why this all makes sense. First, the X-Men cinematic universe was rebooted into a parallel time in Days Of Future Past (2014). secondly, and far more importantly to Dark Phoenix director simon Kinberg, “i don’t think we actually did the dark phoenix story in The Last Stand.”
In this regard he’s in tune with fans. the dark phoenix saga in the comics chronicled Jean Grey/marvel Girl’s transformation into the mind-bogglingly powerful and evil dark phoenix (because if power corrupts then cosmic power corrupts cosmically) over 38 issues. The Last Stand reduced all that to a B-plot.
“It was backgrounded to the main storyline in a dual plot,” says Kinberg. “it really didn’t feel like it was fully mined or fully explored in that movie. i wanted to make sure that the dark phoenix plot was not only the primary
plot of the movie, but the only plot of the movie. the challenge is how to boil that down to a two-hour movie.
“i really wanted to make it just Jean and her struggle with this cosmic entity taking her over. to follow how that struggle emotionally, psychologically and supernaturally manifests for Jean personally, and for the people around her, the X-men.”
The difference between these two versions of the saga is, he says, “similar to deadpool in X-Men Origins versus deadpool in Deadpool”.
He also happily admits there are parallels to Captain
America: Civil War.
“i love Civil War, it’s one of my favourite mcU movies. what i loved about it was friend turns against friend – something very personal splits them down the middle. that’s true of this movie. what you see is a Jean who’s cracked up. Jean losing control. Jean becoming destructive. so there are people in her immediate circle – the X-men, magneto as well – who believe she can be saved and people who believe she should be stopped and killed. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends. that schism widens throughout the film.”
While this is Kinberg’s first movie as director he’s been involved with Fox’s X-Men franchise since a pre-mcU Kevin Feige and avi arad invited him to help script The Last Stand. he’s worked as a co-writer or producer on every X-film since, plus Logan and the deadpools. an X-men fan since he was a kid, he relishes the chance to tell an X-men tale in his own style. “i wanted to bring a dirtier, grittier vibe. the
X-Men films are almost 20 years old and i think the films have been very stylised. it’s been operatic. it hasn’t really lived in our world. i wanted to make this movie feel more like it lived in the real world.”
he sees the approach as a direct reaction against the film that immediately preceded it, the last X-movie helmed by Bryan singer before he departed from the franchise. “i felt what we did with Apocalypse, it got a little bit away from character-led storytelling. i really wanted to get it back to being grounded in [as much] human emotion as possible.” he’s also not ignoring the cosmic element of the saga.
The Last Stand did, implying that Jean simply turned evil as a result of some latent power within herself.
“it was also important to me that we got into the cosmic storyline,” says Kinberg. “what was happening to Jean wasn’t just psychological, it was the phoenix force – an intergalactic cosmic entity. those were things that were never explored – that kind of scale, that kind of intergalactic element – in an
X-Men movie before.” Just as Kinberg has finally got his hands on the keys of the X-universe, though, it has been snatched away from him by the disney/Fox merger, which means that at some hazy point in the distant future the X-men will be integrated with the mcU. that means Dark
Phoenix is the final Fox X-movie, and while Kinberg didn’t know this would be the case when he started the film, he says it still makes a fitting finale.
“when we started working on the script we weren’t looking at it as the last one, but we were looking at it as the culmination of this cycle of X-Men movies. if X-Men: First Class began the cycle with a bunch of strangers coming together as a family, as a team, this was
I wanted to bring a dirtier, grittier vibe... I wanted to make this movie feel more like it lived in the real world
a movie about that family and team breaking apart and then ultimately coming back together as a result. it felt like a natural end.”
the trailers did cause some controversy when they revealed phoenix killing mystique. this event seems to replace phoenix destroying a planet in the comics, in an attempt to make the pivotal moment where Jean truly oversteps the mark more personal. But wasn’t this a major spoiler? “part of the reason that that was in the trailer was to indicate to people that this was a bold, different kind of X-Men movie where you don’t just emerge from a fallen building and dust yourself off. anybody and everybody is at risk.”
But people have died in X-Men movies before. “logan notwithstanding, in the main
X-Men movie even the characters that die resurrect in the post credit scenes,” he perseveres. “major characters don’t die. this is a different kind of X-Men movie. the trailer wanted to declare that.”
another element of previous films he’s playing down is the period setting. the last four X-movies have jumped from the ’60s to the ’70s to the ’80s and now the ’90s, but you might not notice this time around.
“i didn’t really go hard at the ’90s angle. Unlike the previous decades, it’s not so different-looking in terms of the clothes and cars and things from now – other than the lack of mobiles. i felt like we had started fetishising the periods, and spending too much time on that. so without doing anything that was anachronistic i didn’t make a big deal of people wearing nirvana shirts.”
DARK INSPIRATION
But what of the mysterious alien character being played by Jessica chastain, seen guiding the newly empowered Jean in the trailers. is she, as some fans suspect, a twisted version of professor X’s love interest lilandra from the comics? Kinberg is circumspect.
“i will tell you this: her character is inspired by a few different characters from the dark phoenix saga. to do the full lilandra plot, her relationship with charles, would start to pull the movie away from Jean. and i really, really, really wanted to keep focussed on Jean. so there are elements of various characters that the fans will recognise in terms of derivation and motivation.” along this line, Kinberg also teases, “there’s one little cameo that hardcore fans will, i think, get a kick out of on the X-men side. it’s only very brief.”
so what’s next for the X-Men franchise now it’s disney’s plaything? “i really have no idea,” says Kinberg, but he admits he’d love to get another phone call from Kevin Feige like the one he got all those years ago.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens in UK cinemas on 5 June.