An eight-plus-month-old Dark Phoenix rumor has been confirmed, one that concerns the movie's reshoots.
Last August, we heard through the grapevine that Simon Kinberg was significantly extending the length of the reshoots for Dark Phoenix. While the original plan was to conduct the additional photography in a time frame of two weeks, it was now going to take place for as long as three months. The extension was apparently meant to allow Kinberg, a first-time director, to make changes to the third act that he and his team and had a shot a year before.
That particular rumor has now been confirmed by a new Entertainment Weekly report. The magazine has learned from Kinberg that he actually did shoot a new third act for Dark Phoenix during the reshoots. The original climax was taking place in space. The newer one, however, would find all the X-Men kidnapped and on board a military train. The director also decided to revamp the look of Sophie Turner's titular character after having already wrapped up the movie's production, making her appear more "cosmic" and less "flamy".
These changes were made in an attempt to balance the movie's big-scale action with its small-scale drama. According to Simon Kinberg:
I think the biggest challenge is modulating the film so that we have the big scale and visual-effects action that these movies require, but balancing that in a way that feels calibrated with the drama. You have these big space sequences and trains flying through the air and people firing lightning bolts, but you also have a lot of emotional, four-page dramatic dialogue scenes.
Of course, bringing extended reshoots into play to make major changes is never a good sign for a movie. But to be honest, most of us have been indifferent to Dark Phoenix right from the moment it was announced. Whether it was due to the failure of its immediate predecessor (X-Men: Apocalypse) or that of the original Dark Phoenix Saga adaptation (X-Men: Last Stand), we kept wondering if we really needed this movie.
And we couldn't care any less about the June 7 release after hearing about the Disney-Fox merger. The trailers released so far have not been downright awful - the final one, especially, was quite impressive. But still, there wasn't enough to make us really want to see the movie. And this news about the reshoots doesn't help either.
EW has also come up with a couple of new stills from the upcoming X-Men installment. One of these stills shows Jean Grey embracing her newfound, darker powers. The other one features a bunch of angry-looking mutants, including Professor X, Magneto, Beast, Cyclops and Storm. Check out the stills below!
