New X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX Footage Screened at WonderCon and Here's What We Saw

Well, director Simon Kinberg showed up at WonderCon today to show off some new footage from the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix film. There was about ten to fifteen minutes of footage screened and for the most part… I liked what I saw! This might end up being the best X-Men movie since First Class.

Before I dive into it…

First Clip:

The first sequence that was screened featured the X-Men flying off into space in the Blackbird to help save a team of NASA astronauts who are in trouble as their shuttle is spinning out of control as a black fiery floating mass is getting bigger and becoming unstable. They think that this is a solar flare, but what they come across is obviously not that.

The X-Men who race off into space on this mission include Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). Professor X (James McAvoy) stays behind as he communicates to both NASA and the X-Men which hooked up to Cerebro.

Mystique takes the lead on the mission and is directing the mutant team on what to do. Cyclops ends up using his eye blast power through a weapon that has been built into the Blackbird to stop the ship from spinning. This allows for Nightcrawler to teleport over to the ship with Quicksilver to save the astronauts inside.

There’s a great sequence here involving Quicksilver as he races into action to save the people on the shuttle because even in space he is a super fast dude! As they are saving the crew, Storm is using her powers to seal the damage on the ship and keep the ship from breaking apart.

Once Quicksilver and Nightcrawler have everyone they transport back onto the Blackbird, but then realize there is still one more person on the ship that they have to save… the commander. Mystique wants to abort and go home because they are cutting it way close but Xavier wants to take the risk to save the other person. Mystique isn’t happy about this because she does not want to put anyone as greater risk than they already are.

With Storm no longer able to hold the ship together, Xavier believes that that Jean can do it, but Jean says she needs to be inside of the ship to hold it together. You see where all this is going. They have less than a minute to get the commander before the “solar flare” engulfs the shuttle. Nightcrawler and Jean teleport over and Nightcrawler saves the astronaut and with no time left the “solar flare” hits and Nightcrawler teleports back to the Blackbird with the astronaut and leaves Jean behind.

As this point the shuttle is engulfed by the insane energy and as she is freaking out during the ordeal she starts to absorb the energy, and as you might imagine she is screaming in terror. She ends up absorbing every bit of energy and when the chaos is all over, Nightcrawler teleports into space to get her and she seems fine.

When the X-Men and the astronauts return to Earth they are met by their fans and a celebration. Everyone seems happy except for Mystique who is pretty pissed off at Xavier for putting the team in that kind of danger. She thinks that Xavier’s ego is too big and causing him to make stupid decisions on these mission. He disagrees and says doing stuff like this is the only way for mutants to continue to be accepted by society.

Mystique snaps back pointing out that Xavier hasn’t risked his own life for something in a long time, and that women are the ones constantly saving the men on the team. She then burns him by telling him that maybe the X-Men name should be changed X-Women.

Second Clip:

In the second clip Jean has left the X-Men team and was kicked out of Magneto’s sanctuary after she apparently killed someone. So, she teams up with Jessica Chastain’s villainous character who is trying to have Jean unlock her full potential.

Xavier finds out that Magneto is going after Jean to kill her and he is brining Beast along with him. Yes, Beast is now on Magneto’s side and is out to kill Jean. So, Xavier, Cyclops, Storm and Nightcrawler go after Jean to try and save her from being killed and this leads to an incredibly big and complex action sequence and a lot of the stuff in this scene was done with practical effects which makes the whole thing even more impressive.

After the X-Men teleport to the location, they find themselves facing off with Magneto, Beast, Red Lotus with attack hair braids, and Selene with mind control. It’s at this point Cyclops lashes out at Magneto and says “If you hurt jean, I’ll fucking kill you!” Yes, Cyclops drops the F-bomb. But, Magneto ignores him and goes after Jean anyway because no one scared of Cyclops, he’s not intimidating at all.

Cyclops is blasting away at him and everyone is fighting with each other from the two different group. As the fight rages on, Magneto uses his powers to pull a subway car up from under the ground and drags it behind him into the building that Jean is in. This was apparently done with all practical effects!

Once he’s inside Magneto is confronted by Jean and Chastain’s character, and he uses his powers to pull apart a metal stair bannister with a sharp edge to stab Jean in the face, but she stops him because she’s super powerful now and then she uses those powers to crush Magneto’s helmet while it’s on his head and as you might imagine he’s hurting pretty bad. Then the scene ends.

You know, as I wrote this out, I realized how ridiculous some of this stuff was, but hey! It’s X-Men, and it’s the last X-Men movie we’ll get before Marvel Studios takes over!

I will say that it does look better than I expected. X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be released on June 7th, 2019.