X-Men: ‘Dark Phoenix’ Is Beginning of a New Chapter for the Franchise Says Director

Those looking to shut the door on the X-Men film series after Dark Phoenix may need to take a step back.

According to director Simon Kinberg, Dark Phoenix is just the beginning of a new era for the series.

“I see it as a new chapter,” Kinberg says. “I see it as taking the franchise in a different direction tonally. And that doesn’t mean that the next one will have the same tone, it just means that the next one can have a different tone. I think for many years, the X-Men, Bryan [Singer] really transformed the superhero genre in 2000 or 2001 when the first one came out. That’s almost 20 years ago. It is a long time ago. And at that time, superhero movies were not wildly popular, actually. There had been a few failures in the mid-90s, and there hadn’t been a lot of superhero movies, if any, around that time and X-Men sort of was revolutionary in its moment.

“But that was 20 years ago and I think, I really felt like it time to really change the look, the feel, the tone, the vibe of these movies. And that doesn’t mean this is the one going forward, it just means that if it’s me or whoever directs the next one, you can make it different, and you have to make it different.”

Kinberg seems to feel like he’s set up a very interesting new era for the X-Men film franchise where each film can have a more distinct flavor to it, similar how Logan and Deadpool were made. How the looming Fox-Disney deal and the X-Men’s presumed introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe affects that future remains to be seen.

Kinberg has spoken previously about the influence Logan had on his approach to Dark Phoenix.

“The way I wanted to make the movie was very different than the aesthetic of previous X-Men movies, which I’ve been very involved in and proud of,” Kinberg told Empire. “But I wanted it to feel more naturalistic, I wanted it to feel edgier, more handmade, more real. I was very inspired by what James Mangold did with Logan, and I felt like if I could bring a measure of that aesthetic in the film that all of the intergalactic and larger-scale things that happen in the movie would feel more shocking, more realistic, more emotional. They’d be grounded in some reality.

“And so, all of the movie – from the costumes, to the title card, to the set design, to the way the X-jet looks – all of that stuff is just more analogue in a way,” Kinberg said. “More like, let’s say, the original Star Wars movies. Not that analogue, but the movies I grew up loving had this very gritty, edgy, cool, human feeling to them.”

Are you excited about the new era of X-Men movies? Let us know in the comments!

Dark Phoenix opens June 7, 2019.

Upcoming X-Men movies include Once Upon a Deadpool on December 12th, The New Mutants on August 2, 2019, and Gambit on March 13, 2020.