With Sophie Turner as Jean Grey and Jessica Chastain as the mysterious villain known as Smith, it appears that X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be a female-driven superhero movie. But the movie will be without one notable female supporting character from the previous movies.
Rose Byrne told CinemaBlend that her character from First Class and Apocalypse, CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, would not appear in Dark Phoenix. She added that she was looking forward to seeing the movie, especially Chastain's new character:
Unfortunately, Moira is not showing up. I wish she was. I had such fun on X-Men: Apocalypse. I love that cast. It is a really fun…What do you call it? Superhero film…ensemble…I can’t wait to see what [Chastain] does, ’cause I’m such a fan.
X-Men writer Chris Claremont also has high hopes for the project. The November 2, 2018 release will be 21st Century Fox's second attempt to adapt Claremont's extended Marvel Comics storyline The Dark Phoenix Saga. The first attempt, Brett Ratner's The Last Stand, was nothing short of a mess, but Claremont believes that Dark Phoenix will be a success.
Claremont pointed out during a recent phone conversation with ScreenCrush that 1967’s Casino Royale was a disaster, but Martin Campbell's adaptation from 2006 did wonders for the James Bond franchise. He feels that Simon Kinberg’s adaptation is going to do the same for the X-Men franchise:
The second Dark Phoenix will have as powerful an impact on the comic book film world as the second Casino Royale had on the James Bond film world…Simon Kinberg has his heart in the right place. He's got the best ensemble cast of young faces I've seen in quite a while. My hope is that it will give the Avengers a more than decent run for their money.
