In addition to the
first trailer for
Dark Phoenix, IGN also has
two exclusive photos from the long-awaited next X-Men movie to share with you. I also had the chance to chat separately today with director-writer Simon Kinberg and Jean Grey actress Sophie Turner about the film, which offers a new interpretation of the Dark Phoenix saga previously adapted for X-Men: The Last Stand. One of our exclusive photos is the first look at new mutant characters played by Andrew Stehlin and Kota Eberhardt.
Dark Phoenix marks the first time the X-Men movies have embraced the cosmic elements that were a part of the original Marvel Comics, particularly the Dark Phoenix saga. The filmmaker did confirm that the movie's antagonist, played by Jessica Chastain, is an alien. He also confirmed that her character is not named "Smith" as had been reported, while opting to "plead the fifth" when pressed on earlier reports that the avian alien civilization known as the Shi'ar Empire was in the movie. (Chastain's role was
originally reported to be
Lilandra, empress of the Shi'ar Empire.)
The first of the two new photos seen below depict Jessica Chastain's villainess opposite Sophie Turner's Jean Grey. Of Jean's relationship with Chastain's character, Turner told IGN, "It’s an interesting one and I don’t want to spill too much about it but basically Jessica’s character is very interested in this power that I’ve kind of acquired and this cosmic force that I have and she kind of wants that force to use it for her own -- she has her own intentions with it and she kind of wants to use that. And she nurtures me in a way to make me kind of trust her."
Kinberg took the opportunity to shoot down a fan theory that Chastain's character was really a gender-swapped version of Mastermind, the evil mutant telepath who played a key role in Jean Grey's downfall in the Marvel Comics version of the Dark Phoenix saga. "I will say that Jessica’s character is not Mastermind but there are elements of the way Mastermind manipulates Jean that Jessica’s character does employ," Kinberg explained. "For me, as you’ll see, that Jessica’s character has elements of a few different characters from the comics."
Check out these two exclusive new photos from Dark Phoenix, including our first look at Andrew Stehlin and Kota Eberhardt's mutant characters, Red Lotus and Selene:
Kinberg also said of Chastain's character: "She is from, let’s say, not our planet, her character. I’ll keep it relatively mysterious but it is a cosmic story in a way that is extraterrestrial, which is something we’ve never done in the X-Men movies before but is obviously something that is integral to the Dark Phoenix story so I felt we couldn’t’ do what we did on X3 and ignore that. We had to actually embrace it. So there’s a fair amount that takes place in space, and the inciting incident that starts to turn Jean, let’s say, dark and fill her with this power that she can’t control happens in space. And then there are forces from space that come to Earth because of that."
The cosmic element of the story is just one aspect of Dark Phoenix, though. As the new trailer makes clear, Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) made a few moral choices along the way in regards to Jean's burgeoning powers that will have repercussions among his relationships with both the X-Men and Magneto. Indeed, everyone in the new trailer seem downright furious with Professor X this time around, an observation that got a chuckle out of Sophie Turner.
"You’re very right, everyone seems to hate Charles in this trailer and blame him for everything," Turner laughed, adding, "One of the main things with Jean throughout this movie is her abandonment. She’s been kind of abandoned by everyone she loves or comes across and Charles is the biggest one of them all. So she feels a lot of betrayal from Charles and she does a lot of things out of spite because of that."
Kinberg, however, said Xavier's choices were ultimately for the greater good and that the other characters in the movie don't have the full story (yet) about what's happening with Jean Grey. "My hope with the film is that everybody has a valid point of view. So that Charles did certain things to try to help Jean. They may have been misguided, they may have been guided by wanting to control her, they may have been guided by ego, but they were ultimately in his heart to try and help someone who was unstable and over the span of the movie, for a reason that has nothing to do with him, a reason that takes place in space, she becomes more and more unstable," Kinberg explained.
"And people in the movie start to blame him for that not realizing what’s actually happening to her. So, yes, he did some things in the past that one could see as dubious but he did them for a good purpose, from his point of view, and so as Jean is losing control and doing these sometimes horrific certainly destructive things, for lack of an explanation for many of the characters because they don’t understand this larger cosmic entity, they are looking at Charles as the one responsible for it when in fact the movie sort of operates on two planes. It operates as a very personal, intimate story about Jean and her past and her struggle with her powers, and it also operates as this much larger intergalactic story with aliens involved that Charles is not responsible for."
Speaking of intergalactic stories, what role if any might the cosmic play in the other X-Men-related movies Kinberg is producing and which are still in development at 20th Century Fox (despite the looming Disney takeover of both the studio and the X-Men franchise in general)?
"I always look to the comics obviously as the touchstones for the movies, and as you know and all fans know there is a lot of cosmic, extraterrestrial stories in the X-Men lore," Kinberg said. "It’s not something that we’ve explored in the past. It’s something we certainly begin to explore in this movie and if it’s appropriate to whatever the next movies would be then I would absolutely do that. It’s something I think audiences have almost grown accustomed to now given that the Marvel [MCU] movies are so often now intergalactic."
Look for more from my interviews with both Simon Kinberg and Sophie Turner about Dark Phoenix later on Thursday, along with our breakdown of all the Easter eggs we caught in the new trailer.
Dark Phoenix soars into theaters Valentine's Day 2019.
this is gonna be such 
Damn you called that to a t
@ Mystique poppin up at Rogues wedding.
