X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX Director Simon Kinberg Confirms Death of Major Character and Explains Why it Was Revealed in the Trailer

If you haven’t watched the trailer yet ,this is spoiler territory.

The new trailer for X-Men: Dark Phoenix was released last night, and it teased one major X-Men character being killed off. While it’s easy to think that this aspect of the trailer was a misdirect, director Simon Kinberg confirmed in an interview with EW that Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique is killed in the film, and when asked why he made this reveal in the trailer, he explained:

“Well, the thought process behind that was to primarily show that this is a movie that is unlike other X-Men movies. It’s a movie where shocking things happen, where intense, dramatic things happen. People don’t just fall off buildings and dust themselves off and walk away. There’s a reality to this movie and a consequence to this movie. Even more than that, it was to show that Jean/Dark Phoenix is genuinely a threat to everyone, including the X-Men.”

I was actually pretty shocked that this was revealed in the trailer. I guess Jennifer Lawrence really didn’t want to be in the film, and she is killed off pretty early on in the story. Kinberg goes on to explain why the death was important to the story. When asked if he was nervous about killing the character he said:

“I had a lot of emotions about it. I was obviously sad about it, as Jen’s friend, and also as a fan of Jen as an actress. But I felt it was the strongest, most dramatic thing for the movie, and sometimes you have to make those kinds of hard decisions to service the larger story. And the larger story really is Jean cracking up, losing control because she’s more powerful than anyone else in the world. To dramatize that properly, you have to show real loss, you have to show real pain and show real threat and menace. I didn’t want to do that by her blowing up a building with anonymous people in it. It had to feel really personal for the X-Men, and I wanted it to be something that would fracture the X-Men as well. Mystique is someone who in our universe has been part of the X-Men and has been part of Magneto’s world. Her death impacts literally everybody.”

Mystique won’t be the only major death in the film, though. Kingberg went on to tease:

“There are certainly other major casualties in this.”

He obviously didn’t reveal who else would die. Ya gotta save some surprises for the the movie! I guess it makes sense to kill off a bunch of characters because this is the last X-Men movie to be released before Marvel Studios takes over.

What do you think about Mystique being killed off in the film and the fact they revealed that in the trailer?