Home Entertainment Rumour: Next X-MEN movie could tackle the Dark Phoenix Saga

Rumour: Next X-MEN movie could tackle the Dark Phoenix Saga

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dark phoenix

The list of crimes against geekdom perpetrated by 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand is well documented and lengthy, but its most heinous offence is arguably its butchering of one of the greatest comic book stories ever told.

Released in 1980, writer Chris Claremont and artists Dave Cockrum and John Byrne’s “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is an epic space-heavy tale with a huge cast of characters that spans galaxies, focusing on Jean Grey losing control of her powers, and becoming a godlike entity that threatens the survival of the universe. And it looks like there’s a chance that it may finally just get retold correctly on the big screen.

After having been resurrected during X-Men: Days of Future Past – whose time travelling shenanigans retconned the much maligned Last Stand out of continuity – the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse will see the return of Jean Grey to the series, this time with Sophie Turner playing a younger version of the character originally portrayed on the screen by Famke Janssen. Franchise writer/producer Simon Kinberg recently spoke to IGN and confirmed that they are considering retelling past stories.

“I think everything that hasn’t been told from First Class and Days of Future Past is up for grabs going forward, so it would absolutely be a story we could tell in a different way.”

And that was followed up with director Bryan Singer telling EW recently…

“And Jean she has not only has her telekenisis and her telepathy but she also knows inherently that something darker and more powerful is growing inside her and she doesn’t quite know what it is.”

The folks over at Heroic Hollywood heard all of this and put two and two together. And reaching out to their sources, they’re now hearing that all the Jean Grey character work being done in Apocalypse is to setup the next cinematic chapter in this series which will be tacking “The Dark Phoenix Saga”.

jean grey x-men

Since Singer’s return to the franchise he kicked off, he’s already tackled two of the most iconic X-Men stories and characters in Days of Future Past and Apocalypse, so this would definitely be a logical progression for him. It would be immensely ambitious though, especially if the movie was to introduce the cosmic side of the X-Men and specifically the alien Shi’Ar Empire – a cornerstone of the X-Men comic book world which has thus far been completely ignored by the movies, but which plays a huge role in the “Dark Phoenix Saga”. (And yes, I would give one of Nick’s vital organs to get to see Gladiator and the rest of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard on screen!)

Obviously we’re still at least a couple years away from another X-Men movie after Apocalypse, so Heroic Hollywood didn’t have much more to backup their claims. However it must be pointed out though that they’ve been really reliable as of late when it comes to these scoops (most recently they were 100% spot on with all their rumours for Batman v Superman).

As Heroic Hollywood teases though, it’s something that happens in Apocalypse that sets up this story for Jean Grey. That means we only have to wait until it releases on May 27, 2016. In other words: Soooooooon!

Last Updated: April 21, 2016

3 Comments

  1. Seeing Gladiator on the big screen would be cool, but what if he makes an appearance in one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies instead. I thought Ronan would’ve popped up in a FF4, but ended up in the MCU. Perhaps that’s where Gladiator will make an appearance too, depending on who has the rights to the character’s movie appearances.

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      April 21, 2016 at 18:11

      All the Shi’Ar characters are part and parcel of the X-Men licence as far as I know.

      Reply

      • LegionZA

        April 22, 2016 at 09:04

        Ah, ok, and that’s why you write the articles. Let’s hope they do the character justice if he does pop up in the X-Men films. Otherwise they will have to redeem another character like they did with Deadpool.

        Reply

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