While the X-Men franchise is soon to come under the control of Marvel Studios, the current longest-running superhero franchise is set to get an epic sendoff when Dark Phoenix premieres later this summer.
20th Century Fox released a brand new photo for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, showcasing the titular hero/villain in distress Jean Grey, as played by Sophie Turner. Take a look below:
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After the success of Logan and the Deadpool movies, the X-Men producers decided to take a different approach with their main franchise. Writer and director Simon Kinberg has since explained that Dark Phoenix will be unlike any other film that has come before, and could set up a new future for the series.
“I see it as a new chapter,” Kinberg said at CCXP in Brazil last month. “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.”
Of course, it remains to be seen if this version of the X-Men will continue on past this film, as the franchise will soon fall under the banner of Marvel Studios once Disney’s purchase of Fox assets is complete. But until then, we can plan on one final film to wrap up the current storyline before the mutants start mixing it up with the Avengers.
Fans will get to see the movie when X-Men: Dark Phoenix premieres in theaters on June 7th.