The upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix will bring to life an all-new live-action interpretation of Jean Grey‘s Phoenix abilities, with the film’s director Simon Kinberg conjuring a new approach to displaying the character’s powers. Entertainment Weekly debuted a first look at the ambitious character, with Kinberg explaining he’ll need a long post-production process to do the look justice.
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“I wanted the post time to deliver on the nuance of the visual effects, not just the scale of them. That takes time,” Kinberg explained of what the post-production for the film is scheduled to take nearly a year.
Grey’s Phoenix abilities first began to manifest in the climax of X-Men: Apocalypse, with Jean seemingly awakening a latent power that resided within her. Not only will the upcoming film show a new interpretation of the powers, but will also detail how Jean crossed paths with the power in the first place.
Entertainment Weekly described, “The X-Men, including Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), are heroes when the film begins and sent up to save some stranded astronauts. But a solar flare hits the X-Jet and all hell breaks loose.”
It’s on this mission that Jean is blasted with solar flares, making her Phoenix abilities more powerful.
“Jean absorbs those solar flares and then hurls them back out into space,” Kinberg explained. “That’s what triggers, awakens, creates this Phoenix force and voice inside her. What appears to the world to be another heroic victory by the X-Men in saving stranded people in space we realize is the the thing that begins the unraveling of Jean and the unraveling of secrets Charles told her.”
This is a slight deviation from the original origin story, originally detailed in the “Dark Phoenix Saga.” In that storyline, Jean is in space attempting to shield a shuttle from harmful radiation, causing the cosmic entity of the Phoenix to enter Jean’s body and replicate her, forcing the real Jean into stasis in a cocoon.
Fans previously saw a version of the Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand, which merely consisted of actress Famke Janssen having dark red hair and contact lenses. This new approach is sure to be unlike anything we’ve seen before.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix lands in theaters November 2, 2018.
[H/T Entertainment Weekly]
