Simon Kinberg Says X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX will be More Grounded and More Loyal to the Original Comics Than X-MEN 3
I'm really curious to see how this new X-Men: Dark Pheonix turns out. The past couple of X-Men films range from decent to mediocre, but far from great. Hopefully, director Simon Kinberg will actually deliver something great. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Kinberg talks about his film and explains that it will stay true to the comics…and also feel real and grounded:
"It’s much more loyal to the original comic than X-Men 3, which told the Dark Phoenix story. It’s a movie that involves extraterrestrial characters, which is not something that we’ve done in the X-Men franchise before, and is something that is a huge part of the Dark Phoenix saga in the comics. … It’s more intense and it’s more real and grounded, and hopefully more relatable."
When I heard the words "real" and "grounded" as it pertains to movies, I think of movies like Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy and even Logan. I'm fine with that approach as long as it's done properly. It was previously described as being the Casino Royale of the franchise, which could offer some insight on the kind of grounded tone they are going for:
"Well, I think that’s a perfectly accurate paradigm; the second Dark Phoenix will have as powerful an impact on the comic-book film world as the second Casino Royale had on the James Bond film world. I figure you could do a whole lot worse than that.”
It's going to be interesting to see how they will capture that tone with the extraterrestrial characters that they will be introducing as well. That's definitely going to be a different element added to the film franchise. They've never really played with alien characters before.
The film is set in 1992, "roughly a decade after Apocalypse and finds the X-Men dealing with being heroes. An unfortunate side effect is how that fuels Charles Xavier's (James McAvoy) ego. He starts sending the team on more dangerous missions, including one to space that ends with Grey going to some very dark places."
Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn it into a Dark Phoenix. Mystique, Beast, Storm, Nightcrawler and the rest of the X-Men spring into action when a malevolent, power-hungry force threatens to overtake Jean Grey’s mind.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix, stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult and Jessica Chastain. It opens on February 14, 2019.