Alexandra Shipp Teases Open-Ended 'Dark Phoenix' Conclusion

Even though Dark Phoenix had been long-thought to be the end of the X-Men franchise — even prior to Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox — one star thinks that the film ends a bit too open-ended. Speaking to ComicBook.com at WonderCon, Alexandra Shipp — the actor behind the younger Ororo Munroe — Dark Phoenix does not end in the traditional sense.

"Not at all. Not at all," Shipp says after being asked if Dark Phoenix feels like the end to a 15-year-old franchise. "I think that the way that we did it was that it was open-ended because this is Marvel we're talking about. You can be dead one day and back the next, honey."

"I am not afraid of this franchise when it comes to something like that. The world is ever-growing, ever-changing, ever-evolving. What's beautiful about these characters, is that they grow with it."

With Dark Phoenix due out this summer and New Mutants set to hit sometime this Fall — at least how it stands now — it has yet to be revealed whether Marvel Studios will be using any of the storylines, cast, or crew when they carry over the characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Dark Phoenix producer and director Simon Kinberg, they wanted to create both an ending and beginning with the film.

"That felt like the culmination of a storyline or a cycle of these films. And for me, and for most of the fans ... Dark Phoenix is the ultimate and most iconic storyline in the X-Men universe. And so I didn't know how we would top Dark Phoenix within this cycle. This felt like we had to earn our way back to Dark Phoenix. And I feel like we did hopefully, and beyond that felt like we'd want to sort of create an ending and the possibility of a new beginning. And that's what we do on this film."

Dark Phoenix hits theatres June 7th while The New Mutants is currently scheduled for release on August 2nd, though that could likely change.

Additional reporting by Scott Huver.

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