‘Dark Phoenix’ Star Alexandra Shipp Says Movie Is More Gritty Than Comic-Accurate

Dark Phoenix is set to land in theaters this summer, taking Fox’s X-Men franchise into a familiar, but new, direction. And according to Alexandra Shipp, who will reprise her role as Storm, the upcoming film will take a decidedly different tone from the previous X-Men installment.

ComicBook.com got a chance to speak with Shipp during Anaheim’s WonderCon, where she spoke about the visual differences between Dark Phoenix and 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. As Shipp put it, the latter film is much more aesthetically gritty, when compared to the more comic-accurate look of the previous film.

“I love the fashion of it, I love the colors.” Shipp revealed. “When we first started Apocalypse, it was like walking onto a comic book. You felt like you were walking into a comic book, and what I love about Dark Phoenix is that, it is way more gritty. I think it affects you in a way more visceral way because it’s not a comic vibe. It’s very real, it’s very raw, and it was scary at times. It’s scary to think that someone you love is losing their mind.”

That sort of gritty tone has definitely been prevalent with Dark Phoenix‘s early marketing, with the upcoming threequel trying to set itself apart from both the rest of the films in the X-Men reboot, and in the first retelling of the story in X-Men: The Last Stand.

“I think it’s the classic X-Men: First Class tone, where there’s a bit of humor thrown in there, but it’s much darker than the previous one, Apocalypse,” Evan Peters, who plays Quicksilver, said in an interview last year. “Apocalypse was the ’80s, so there was a lot of room for goofy stuff in there. This one is a much more serious film about the internal struggle of Phoenix and Jean, so it’s a dramatic film. There’s nothing very comedic about it, other than the few moments that are in there. I think it’s gonna be a powerful one. It’s Dark Phoenix. I think it’s gonna be darker than we’re used to. It’s gonna be a change, but it’s gonna be fun for everybody.”

“This is pretty different than the third movie,” producer Hutch Parker explained to ComicBook.com. “I mean the decision here, it was really Simon [Kinberg]’s decision was to tell the Dark Phoenix story but really tell it as Jean’s story. So that was first and foremost. So it’s a much more thorough investigation of that saga of the story at that heart of the saga and much truer to Jean as a character. I think you’re right that one of the challenges was how do we balance what is in the comics in the galactic and intergalactic nature of that storyline with wanting to stay more Earth centric. And you know, we obviously made the decision to include some of that, but to keep it rooted in and around the characters we’ve come to know and love within the X-Men.”

Dark Phoenix will land in theaters on June 7th.

Additional reporting by Scott Huver.