X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX Director Simon Kinberg Explains Reshoots and Release Date Change

It’s no secret that X-Men: Dark Phoenix went through some pretty serious reshoots. There were a lot of rumors and speculation surrounding those reshoots. At one point it was rumored that almost the entire film had to be reshot. But, now director Simon Kinberg sets the record straight in an interview with Collider. When asked about the reshoots, he explained:

"Mostly we focused on the third act, both emotionally and in terms of the physical scale and the action of the third act that we adjusted. And then there were certain things in the first two acts of the movie—very few things, but to set up those changes in the third act we had to adjust some things in the first two acts so that that all was fluid and felt consistent."

So there were some pretty significant reshoots that were done. Hopefully, those reshoots make it a better film than what it was.

It was also reported recently that the release date of the film changed from February 14, 2019 to June 7th. The director was also asked about that and he said that the VFX for the film needs the extra time to be completed:

"It was a date, February 14th, that we initially liked for the movie but when we realized that we weren’t gonna have the visual effects ready to release it globally the way we wanted to, and the Gambit date opened up because it wasn’t gonna be ready for that June 7th date. We looked at that date versus the February 14th date, the studio did and we did, we felt like that June date was a bigger opportunity for us globally. More screens, more IMAX screens, a better chance to play in China where these movies have a massive following. What we found when we released the trailer was that 44, 45 million views of the trailer were in China alone… Specific for us, it is an opportunity to be a bigger movie day-and-date globally."

Are you looking forward to seeing Dark Phoenix or do you think this film is just going to be a lost cause?