Although it’s scheduled to be released in 2018, X-Men: Dark Phoenix lacked a director, although rumor had it that the movie would be Simon Kinberg’s directorial debut. Deadline has finally confirmed that the rumors were true, and Kinberg has signed on to direct the core X-Men franchise’s seventh movie.

Kinberg may not have directed a film to date, but he wrote and produced several X-Men movies as series, including X-Men: Days of Future Past and Legion. So he’s quite knowledgeable about the shared universe.

Deadline also reported that Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Professor X), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), and Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) will return for Dark Phoenix.

But the most exciting news is connected with the rumors that X-Men: Dark Phoenix would introduce the Shi'ar Empire, thus expanding the shared universe beyond Earth. We’ve learned that those rumors were true! Furthermore, we heard a couple of days ago that the studio was in negotiations with Angelina Jolie and Jessica Chastain for the role of Queen Lilandra of the Shi'ar.

Those rumors were partially true, although there’s been no word about Jolie's involvement. We doubted that she'd be interested in taking on this role, anyway, especially since it means signing a multi-picture deal. Deadline did confirm that Jessica Chastain has indeed entered talks with the studio in regard to the Queen Lilandra role.

The website said that if negotiations are successful, Chastain would portray Lilandra as the film’s main antagonist.

To date, there’s been nothing but good news about X-Men: Dark Phoenix. It remains to be seen whether Simon Kinberg is up for the task.