Avengers: Endgame may not have set the stage for the X-Men and Fantastic Four's arrival in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which we've known for a while now given when the Disney/Fox merger was completed), but an X-Men movie is still on the way this year in the form of
Dark Phoenix.
That won't be set in the MCU, and is actually going to be the final FoX-Men movie before the franchise is rebooted by Marvel Studios.
Given the negativity surrounding it,
Dark Phoenix is probably going to end on a whimper rather than a bang, but ten new character posters have been released today which put the spotlight on the movie's leads. Interestingly, they're accompanied by the tagline, "Every Hero Has A Dark Side."
Characters featured here include Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), and an alien?! (Jessica Chastain) The design on these poster is pretty interesting, though.
To check them out, all you guys have to do is hit the "View List" button down below!
We've only spent one movie with this version of Jean Grey but she's already going "Dark" in this film, and if Simon Kinberg is planning to kill her off in a similar way to
The Last Stand and the comic books, then her story is going to end extremely prematurely.
James McAvoy's Professor X hasn't really aged a day since his introduction as the character in a movie which was set thirty years before this one, but he's still done a fantastic job. Just like in
The Last Stand, it seems as if we'll learn that he's spent years lying to Jean Grey about her past.
For some reason, Fox seems to reset Magneto every single time he appears in a movie (probably just to suit whatever story they're telling) and in
Dark Phoenix, the former villain will be ruling over Genosha before returning to America so he can help Beast put an end to Jean for good.
Mystique is going to die in the movie and, no, that's not a spoiler. For reasons which aren't entirely clear, Fox decided to show her demise in the second trailer for
Dark Phoenix and it seems as if Jennifer Lawrence is finally free to ditch that makeup and move on from playing the character.
Storm was something of a non-factor in
X-Men: Apocalypse and Alexandra Shipp has gone on record to say that she would like to do more moving forward than just standing in the background looking cool. Whether that will be the case in this movie isn't clear, but her time as the hero is over.
After watching the women he loves die, Beast decides that Jean Grey must follow her, and it seems as if we can expect the werewolf-type character to break bad in
Dark Phoenix as he finally puts his differences with Magneto to one side so they can stop her from wreaking any more havoc.
Fans have never really been happy with the way Cyclops has been portrayed on screen but Tye Sheridan did a solid job in
X-Men: Apocalypse, and the hope is that he will get the chance to shine here too. Unfortunately, it looks like he'll spend most of the film pursuing his girlfriend.
Nightcrawler was reintroduced to the X-Men Universe in 2016 and he's now a card carrying member of the team. Just how much he'll have to do here remains to be seen, but he'll no doubt get the opportunity to be part of some cool action sequences if the trailers are any indication.
It's become commonplace for Quicksilver to steal the show in these movies with a cool action scene, and we're hearing that this one will take place in outer space. We can more than likely expect that to be set to some great music but rumour has it that his role in
Dark Phoenix will be minor.
Very little is known about Jessica Chastain's mysterious villain, and while rumours have pointed to her taking on the role of everyone from Lilandra to a Skrull, it actually appears as if she'll just be a generic alien character who wants to control the Phoenix Force. Disappointing, right?