X-Men: Dark Phoenix Director Reveals Why He Changed the Movie’s Ending

With just a week until the X-Men franchise reaches its conclusion with the premiere of Dark Phoenix. But the movie has already gone through many changes before its release, including a major overhaul to the final act and ending of Dark Phoenix. But what did director Simon Kinberg change and why did he decide to change it?

Now Kinberg is opening up about the major changes during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, explaining that what they first shot didn’t feel like a suitable ending for the series that began with this group of characters coming together.

“What I felt in watching the third act of the film [before reshoots] is it didn’t fully pay off, the reconciliation of that family. There was not the kind of catharsis I wanted the audience to have where having gone through all of the trauma with this family that you as an audience have gone through with them, you want to see them come together at the end,” Kinberg explained. “You want to see them come together in a different form at the end, a more mature form. When you heal, you get stronger, but you’re different from it. I wanted the third act to reflect that and so we went back and did pickups to really create for me what was a more satisfying, cathartic ending.”

Kinberg also spoke about Marvel Studios’ process of planning reshoots as part of the production, making sure it’s budgeted and put in the schedule from the beginning.

“On the Fox/Marvel movies, we have never done that,” Kinberg added. “We probably should have, because it just makes life easier. Getting this kind of cast all at the same place at the same time is not an easy thing to do. They go off and they have other things going on.”

While this makes sense, it doesn’t exactly mesh with what James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender said about the reason for changing the ending. Instead, the two stars intimated that the movie’s action scene was very similar to another superhero movie that came out.

“The end [of Dark Phoenix] changed a hell of a lot,” McAvoy said. “The finale had to change. There was a lot of overlap and parallels with another superhero movie that came out… a while ago.”

McAvoy didn’t name the exact culprit, but speculation is pointing at Captain Marvel, which also utilized shape-shifting alien threats.

“They had spies on set,” Fassbender jokingly added, “and [they] basically stole our ideas!”

Fans will get to see how it all comes together when Dark Phoenix premieres in theaters next week on June 7th.