X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

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AndyDursin
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X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

Jennifer Lawrence returns, but not Bryan Singer, which is probably a good thing this time.
EXCLUSIVE: Fox has formalized plans for Dark Phoenix, the next installment of the X-Men franchise. This all just happened, but they’ve set Simon Kinberg as director (long rumored), and the studio set a release date of November 2, 2018. Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are all reprising when production begins in Montreal.

At the same time, Jessica Chastain is in talk to join the cast as the main villain, Shi’ar Empress Lilandra.

Kinberg is producing with Bryan Singer, Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner. This is a huge moment for Kinberg, who gets his turn behind the camera after serving as a creative backbone for the X-Men franchise films since writing 2006’s X: Men: The Last Stand; he wrote and produced X-Men: Days Of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse. He is making his directorial debut, but knows the mythology like the back of his hand. Kinberg has been a producer on the spinoff Deadpool and its currently shooting sequel, as well as X-Men: The New Mutants and X-Men: First Class.
http://deadline.com/2017/06/x-men-dark- ... 202113290/

KevinEK
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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#2 Post by KevinEK »

This could go either way with Kinberg directing. He's had a pretty successful career as a writer over the past decade, although the script he and Penn wrote for X-Men Last Stand was pretty bad.

Not surprised to see this bunch of the cast back in. I have a feeling a few more of the First Class bunch will get worked in, depending on how many of them they want to juggle.
Strange that they're making Lilandra a villain. She is not a villain in the comic - she is more of a Princess Leia type of character, with a connection to Professor X.
On the other hand, the Phoenix Force is not a natural part of Jean Grey in the comic, as they've set it up in the movies.


I just watched X-Men Apocalypse for the second time, as a friend wanted to screen it. The second viewing clarified for me that the movie is easily 30 mins too long. They didn't need the material with Quicksilver or Moira at all - and without that, they both would have tightened the movie a lot, and given themselves more time to deal with the actual plot. As it was, the movie was too diffuse and tried to service too many characters without getting much done. They got away with this on Days of Future Past because they were juggling both the old and new casts and were able to count on the audience already having familiarity with Halle Berry and Ian McKellen on that one. With Apocalypse, it was just overlong and undercooked. At the same time, I could see the bones of where they could have made the movie much stronger - if they'd focused squarely on Xavier, Magneto and Mystique with a real emphasis on how they'd dealt with the 10 years since DOTF, that would have given them a lot better grounding. And I still think the ending in the Danger Room is extremely strong - at the least, it's a telling note that we are not headed toward the same world as the original X-Men movies and it's a great throwback to the comic.


I'll wait to see what they're really thinking of doing here. My understanding is that Singer is only peripherally involved as a producer, as he's going on to the Queen movie.
Maybe they'll come up with something interesting.
The Dark Phoenix story, if done correctly, could be a great one to tell.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#3 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote:Jennifer Lawrence returns, but not Bryan Singer, which is probably a good thing this time.
Considering how listless and phoned-in Lawrence's performance was in Apocalypse, I can't agree. Say what you will about that film, but Singer's direction was fine as always, and it contained my favorite individual sequence of 2016 (Quicksilver's witty, slo-mo evacuation of the X-Mansion set to "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This"). Settling for Kinberg as director smacks of another "Eh, good enough" Brett Ratner situation. :?

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AndyDursin
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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#4 Post by AndyDursin »

I never said anything about Lawrence's involvement being good or bad, actually, but I thought APOCALYPSE itself was tired and offered nothing new. I was bored for large sections of it, and what Singer's doing with this younger cast -- which is mostly bland -- is really kind of a puzzle to me. They introduced loads of new, young characters in FIRST CLASS, then mitigated that film's decent (if unspectacular) commercial performance by bringing back the old crew along with them in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. That movie did great, but APOCALYPSE fizzled in comparison as they went back to the FIRST CLASS crew -- after killing off a handful of them.

So where are they right now? Stuck with a mostly dull group of young teenagers nobody cares about -- no Wolverine, who's always been the team's main draw -- and the core of Lawrence, McAvoy and Fassbender. Lawrence looked tired in APOCALYPSE I'll grant you that -- but where is this series without her involvement? They know McAvoy and Fassbender don't sell tickets, and neither does anyone else in this cast. Chastain is a good actress, but she doesn't move the needle for ticket sales either. They really do need Lawrence from a commercial standpoint, as she's the only draw in this ensemble.

That makes this an interesting movie for Fox. They obviously want to retain the "brand" and keep turning out these films, but they're in an interesting position here now with Jackman's Wolverine gone and APOCALYPSE having disappointed at the box-office a little bit.

As far as Singer goes -- I dunno, I just think it's "been there, done that" for him now. That doesn't mean Kinberg is going to be any good -- but he is someone who's been in the "bullpen" so to speak, working on many of these Fox Marvel movies. So this isn't a Ratner situation at all, it's not someone from the "outside" -- it's someone heavily familiar with this series at least.

Kevin's right that this is a great comic book story -- one of the classic Marvel arcs -- but I feel like telling it right now, with these younger actors who just started inhabiting the roles...I think it's kind of a mistake. Almost like JJ Abrams deciding to do WRATH OF KHAN in the 2nd movie of the new Star Trek cast. It's a big dramatic story, which will be mostly served by actors who haven't inhabited these roles long enough to really pull it off.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#5 Post by Monterey Jack »

Granted, Lawrence is the only box-office draw the series has now that Hugh Jackman is done (for a decade or so, when he'll come back for one more, a la Matt Damon as Jason Bourne :roll: ), but she has yet to prove that audiences will line up in droves for her in anything other than headlining an established franchise like X-Men or The Hunger Games. She's a talented actress, but she still has yet to prove her worth selling tickets based on nothing more than her presence in a film. And, as Apocalypse proved, she's clearly not keen on playing the character anymore, barely even appearing in her blue body makeup. Given the choice, I'd rather have Singer behind the camera again than Lawrence in front of it. Big franchise pics directed by untested screenwriters rarely turn out well (Blade: Trinity and The Mummy come immediately to mind). Yeah, Kinberg has an established writing history with Fox's superhero output, but that doesn't mean he'll be any good calling the shots across the board.

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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#6 Post by AndyDursin »

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK wasn't a big hit? She was certainly a large part of that film's success also. And if she wasn't in, say, JOY, what would that film have generated without her?

Look, it's not about audiences lining up in droves just because she's there -- it's that she's the only name there that sells, that anyone is familiar with. APOCALYPSE took a massive nose-dive off DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, both in the U.S. and worldwide. I think if the film did better, they'd have let her walk, but the reality is they played to diminishing returns with APOCALYPSE and cannot afford to lose her. I'm sure she got paid whatever she wanted, especially with Jackman done with this franchise. A movie with McAvoy, Fassbender and a slew of nondescript kids isn't going to cut it commercially.

That's why they're kind of stuck with this series at the moment...this cast ain't Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman and friends. If DARK PHOENIX doesn't outperform APOCALYPSE, we may be in for a franchise hiatus and another reboot several years from now.

KevinEK
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Re: X-MEN DARK PHOENIX - November 2018

#7 Post by KevinEK »

I agree with Andy, but must also point out that Fox is required to keep making X-Men movies (or derivatives thereof) or they lose their part of the Marvel Universe and a reboot would be done by Disney. I think. I don't know all the specifics on this, but I thought that's what we discussed some years ago when the really bad Amazing Spider Man movies were being inflicted.

That said, Fox does have Deadpool, if it delivers again on the second go-round. And they have the New Mutants - although that's lately what the X-Men series has become.

I'm willing to give these guys a chance to do Dark Phoenix correctly after royally messing it up with Brett Ratner. But we'll have to see what they can really come up with using this cast. I do think that McAvoy and Fassbender are quite good in their roles - both have grown into them. And Lawrence is a very good actress if she's given anything to do. It's all the other characters who really haven't had time to develop very far. I just don't know what the heck Mystique has to do with the Dark Phoenix story. The point of the original comic was an inevitable one. The impact of the story does depend on how well we know these characters and how familiar we are with these performances.

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