X-men's dark phoenix saga could get a redo in the movies

During my visit with a small group of press to the set of X-Men: Apocalypse, both producer/writer Simon Kinberg and director/writer Bryan Singer acknowledged that it’s possible they might adapt the Dark Phoenix Saga once again.


The Dark Phoenix Saga is the most popular X-Men comic storyline and arguably one of its best. It sees Jean Grey become possessed by a fiery cosmic bird that embodies the concept of life and death, making her one of the most powerful beings in the universe. The story centers around her struggle to control that power and her eventual fall to evil, becoming the Dark Phoenix.

Even though the Phoenix got a great setup in X2: X-Men United, when X-Men: The Last Stand adapted the story for one of its plotlines, it was universally decried by fans for not doing it justice. Instead of a being an all-powerful fiery bird, Famke Jansen’s Jean Grey was catatonic for most the movie and then her eyes turned black some.

However, a young Jean Grey (played by Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner) is one of the main characters of the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, set in 1983. Thanks to the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the timeline of the movies has been altered, meaning that the original trilogy is no longer set in stone and therefore the filmmakers could retell the story in a different way than it originally went down.

“I think everything that hasn't been told from First Class and Days of Future Past is up for grabs going forward, so it would absolutely be a story we could tell in a different way,” Kingberg answered when asked about adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga once more.

Kinberg was also a co-writer on The Last Stand, so this would be his chance to take a second shot at the iconic story. He hints about how elements of the Phoenix will be seeded in X-Men: Apocalypse, saying “We definitely explore how powerful [Jean Grey] is in this movie, and that can be something that is empowering and something that is dangerous.”

In a separate interview, Singer also expressed how he’d “possibly” want to do “the full Phoenix story.” He admits that the Phoenix already been explored in a movie, so he’d be re-exploring and re-telling it, but “the idea of that brewing within her” absolutely interests him, also hinting that we “may find a piece of that in this movie.”

It’s long been known that Singer had a vision for the Dark Phoenix Saga in what would have been his third X-Men movie, but he instead made Superman Returns, leaving the completion of the trilogy to Brett Ratner. But with the soft reset of the X-Men universe timeline in Days of Future Past, which Singer directed, and the introduction of a young Jean Grey, the opportunity for a retelling is there. Ryan Reynolds suited up as Deadpool for a second time in a completely new crack at the character, so this kind of redo in attempt to do a comic justice isn't without precedent. Between Kinberg and Singer, it’s been all but confirmed that we’ll see similar setup for the story like we did in X2, only this time we’ll be glimpsing the fire of the Phoenix in Turner’s eyes instead.