'X-Men: Dark Phoenix' Director Reveals Details About Mysterious New Characters

Dark Phoenix will introduce some new characters to the X-Men movies universe. "One of the characters is based on a character from the comic, and the other character is sort of an amalgam of different characters from the comic and inspired by different characters," Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg says in an interview with Cinemablend. "The one that's from the comic is Selene, which is a little bit of a nod to the Hellfire Club. It's obviously a huge part of the original 'Dark Phoenix Saga' in the comics, and it's not something we really explore in this film. I wanted to have something that would at least be an homage to that, and it's also a character I always thought was cool and cool-looking."

Kota Eberhardt plays Selene, who is a vampiric mutant in the Marvel Universe. While Selene was the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, she did not appear in the original "Dark Phoenix Saga." She first appeared in New Mutants #9 in 1983.

As Kinberg mentions, the Hellfire Club won't factor into Dark Phoenix. The longtime enemies of the X-Men, led by Sebastian Shaw, were the primary villains of X-Men: First Class.

"And then the other character is a character that, like I said, is sort of a combination of different mutants and an original creation," Kinberg says. He is referring to Red Lotus, played by Andrew Stehlin. "And that's played by, actually, a guy who's one of our stuntmen, and he was originally doing the stunt choreography and the coordination for it. And I was looking at him, and I was like, not only is he so good at doing the action, which is primarily what that character does in this film, but also he's just very interesting-looking. And it turns out he can act as well, 'cause he's got a couple lines in the movie."

Red Lotus may be a composite in Dark Phoenix, but he's also a Marvel character from the comics. He first appeared in X-Treme X-Men #5 in 2001. He's a mutant involved with the Triads. He was misled into believing that his grandfather was murdered by Gambit. Kinberg doesn't specify which characters are amalgamated into this version of Red Lotus.

In Dark Phoenix, "The X-Men face their most formidable and powerful foe when one of their own, Jean Grey, starts to spiral out of control. During a rescue mission in outer space, Jean is nearly killed when she's hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. The X-Men must now band together to save her soul and battle aliens that want to use Grey's new abilities to rule the galaxy."

Are you excited about Dark Phoenix? Let us know in the comments. Dark Phoenix opens in theaters on June 7th.

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