Next week, the era of the 20th Century Fox X-Men will come to an end in Dark Phoenix. The original X-Men movie helped kickstart the modern superhero films in 2000. Now, nearly two decades later, Marvel Studios will assume control of the franchise after this film. While Dark Phoenix was pushed back to rework the ending, director Simon Kinberg insists that it was necessary to give the characters a memorable sendoff.
During an extended interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kinberg indicated that the originally filmed ending in space didn’t capture the necessary emotions to close out the saga.
“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,” said Kinberg. “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. 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.”
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Kinberg sees the film as the closing chapter for the “family” that formed in X-Men: First Class. However, the X-Men’s attempts to save Jean Grey from the Phoenix may ultimately destroy their familial bonds.
“It’s this family of outsiders and outcasts, strangers who come together to form this surrogate family and over the span of these movies have conflicts,” added Kinberg. “But mostly their conflicts are with the outside villains, so the family is tested but remains together. This is a film that would tear the family apart.”
Dark Phoenix will arrive in theaters on Friday, June 7. Are you eager to see the X-Men get some closure? What do you want to see in the film? Let us know in the comment section below!
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