The Original Ending For X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX is Compared To CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and CAPTAIN MARVEL
The ending of X-Men: Dark Phoenix was one of the big things that director Simon Kinberg ended up changing during the reshoots. In a previous interview, James McAvoy revealed that the entire third act of the film was re-shot due to the final scenes resembling the final act of another superhero movie. They wanted to avoid any similarities.
Well, it looks like we now know there were two previously released Marvel movies that had similar endings as Dark Phoenix. Those films are Captain America: Civil War and Captain Marvel. While talking to io9 about the parallels between his original ending for the film and those two Marvel movies, Kinberg explained:
“My original ending didn’t have the entire X-Family together the way they are in the film now. More than Captain Marvel, you could see a lot of Civil War in that ending. Usually, these big, huge action movies have the climactic moment in the third act. I loved the way that Civil War had its big action action set piece where everyone’s facing off more towards the end of the second act rather than in the third, so that after that huge battle, you’re left with Winter Soldier, Captain America, and Iron Man.
“It’s this telescoped down view of their raw emotions, and I loved how intimate that was. That’s what I was going for with Dark Phoenix’s ending even though it then might have looked like Captain Marvel for about two minutes.”
Kinberg went on to explain that at her full power, “Jean’s sequences in space were reminiscent of some of Captain Marvel’s visuals, and that his original film truly would have torn the X-Men apart on an ideological level the way Civil War did for the Avengers.”
I think maybe Kinberg should’ve stuck with that original ending, because the one we got wasn’t really that impressive. Changing the ending up probably wouldn’t have really helped the movie as a whole, though, anyway. But, it sounds better than what we ended up getting.
Oh well! What’s done is done and now it’s time for Marvel Studios to give us their vision of the X-Men… when they are ready for it.