X-Men: The Last Stand adapted both the "Dark Phoenix Saga" and "The Cure" storylines, but neither of them were handled particularly well. With
Dark Phoenix, Simon Kinberg has said that he wanted to make up for past mistakes, so why has so much that makes the comic book version great been removed?
"I think if I had four hours to tell this story I would've included the Hellfire Club, I might've included Lilandra," the first-time director explains. "Because I wanted it to be so focused on Jean and I wanted to really tell a character story a little differently than we have in the past in the X-Men."
"In the past it's been a little more horizontal, meaning there was a breadth of character, there was a bunch of characters. In this one I wanted to go a little more vertical, I wanted to go deep with our main characters, and especially with Jean.
"So while I loved the Hellfire characters and their role in the Dark Phoenix saga in the comics, and I loved the Lilandra storyline in the comics, all of those felt like they were going to start to compete with the main story of Jean and her emotional crack-up and the break-up of the X-Men family," he continued. "And I didn't want to draw away from that main emotional through-line."
That's understandable, but doesn't make a huge amount of sense when you look at how much story Marvel Studios managed to cram into something like
Avengers: Endgame to great effect. It's also difficult to figure out why Kinberg thinks it would be a good idea to cast Jessica Chastain as a generic, nameless "Alien" (her name in the movie according to various sources) instead of Lilandra.
With the review embargo set to lift next week, we'll learn more about
Dark Phoenix soon.