‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ Director on Disney Purchase and Marvel Studios Control

The X-Men movie franchise will reach a new climax when Dark Phoenix premieres later this summer, but it could be the end of an era after Disney purchases 20th Century Fox.

The writing is on the wall that the long-running Marvel movie series will end after Dark Phoenix, with the X-Men coming under the banner of Marvel Studios for a new future after Avengers: Endgame. But according to Dark Phoenix writer and director Simon Kinberg, that future is still in flux until the deal is finalized.

“I haven’t had formal talks with Disney. I know [Marvel Studios President] Kevin Feige very well. But we haven’t had formal talks because until the merger is official, they’re not allowed to have those kinds of conversations with the folks at Fox or myself,” Kinberg told EW. “What’s interesting is obviously I started this movie long before Disney purchased Fox, and I approached the movie knowing that it was the fourth movie with our First Class cast and that the Phoenix story for me is the ultimate X-Men story.

“I approached the movie like it was the culmination in some ways — not that there couldn’t be other movies, but I did approach the movie as if, like, if you spent 20 years of living with this family, this is the movie you see the family truly tested, fall apart, and hopefully come back together. There was something about that sense of closure for the family, that sense of test, that sense of loss. It felt like not this is the end necessarily, but this is it for them.”

It’s unclear if this will segue into a new era of storytelling in the franchise or serve as the end before the characters get rebooted under Disney and Marvel Studios. Either way, Kinberg is treating this as the end of the series that began with X-Men: First Class.

“It is the climax of this franchise. When we did the hair and makeup tests for this movie, I had the Doors song “The End” playing just to set the mood for the actors and the crew,” Kinberg said. “It was this feeling of this is the climax of a lot of stories and a long relationship that we’ve all built up. It felt like it was time at least to give them some huge explosive story that demanded a different kind of resilience from them. I really felt on this one I couldn’t imagine where else to go with these characters after what they’ve gone through in this movie.”

X-Men: Dark Phoenix premieres in theaters on June 7th.

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