DARK PHOENIX Spoilers - 10 Huge Scenes From The Trailers Missing From Fox's Final X-MEN Movie

DARK PHOENIX Spoilers - 10 Huge Scenes From The Trailers Missing From Fox's Final X-MEN Movie

Dark Phoenix underwent major reshoots and looks set to lose hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. Now, we take a closer look at the scenes from the trailers which failed to make the final cut!

Feature Opinion
By JoshWilding - Jun 10, 2019 07:06 AM EST
Filed Under: Dark Phoenix
Dark Phoenix is one of the biggest box office disasters in recent memory, and while that's bad news for fans of Fox's long-running X-Men franchise, it's good news for Marvel Studios; after all, things can only get better from here, and they will soon be credited with saving the mutant characters! 

One of the biggest talking points about Dark Phoenix is the fact that it underwent reshoots which reshaped the entire final act, something that is rather ironic seeing as it was director Simon Kinberg who did the exact same thing with Josh Trank's Fantastic Four...with disastrous results. As a result, the trailers for the movie are full of scenes that didn't make the final cut.

Now, we're taking a look at ten of the most noteworthy scenes that were absent from the film we saw in theaters, and, well, there are some genuinely startling omissions here! For example, what happened to Storm and Nightcrawler teaming up with Magneto and Beast? 

To check out this Dark Phoenix breakdown, simply click on the "View List" button below!

A Covert Meeting

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Well, it seems as if the meeting between these two was originally going to take place in a location a little more exciting than a car park! Bear in mind that the Phoenix is viewed as a God-like being, and with reports claiming that Chastain was named Lilandra in an earlier cut, it looks like Kinberg originally planned to lean into those religious undertones a little more heavily.

There's no way of knowing why this was cut, but if this was indeed their first meeting or even just a random rendezvous, it clearly couldn't be salvaged for the final version of Dark Phoenix
 

Beast Mourns

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There's a shot in the teaser trailer of Hank McCoy walking up a hill, and it seems pretty obvious that he's visiting Mystique's grave. This must have played into why he ultimately chooses to team up with Magneto and it would have benefited the movie to focus more on the fallout from her demise.

While it obviously sets up the entire third act, an argument could be made that Raven is mostly forgotten about until that awkward moment Hank looks at a promotional photo of her on his desk. 
 

Magneto's Permission

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"You didn't come here looking for answers...you came here looking for permission."

That's what Magneto says to Jean in the trailer, and she looks positively evil during this moody sequence. While these two do have a conversation on Genosha, it mostly revolves around him trying to find out where the blood on her shirt has come from and not whatever is going on in this earlier version.

It seems as if Jean originally went there looking for Erik's "permission" to unleash her powers and presumably battle the X-Men, attack the humans, or something equally as sinister. 
 

Carnage At The United Nations

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We've heard from a number of reliable outlets that Dark Phoenix's final act would have taken place as the United Nations came under attack from the D'Bari (originally meant to be the Skrulls). We would have then had a much smaller final act involving Jean, Cyclops, Professor X, and Vuk. 

Well, there are a number of action shots in the teaser trailer that were quite clearly from this battle, and it's crazy to think that all of this is sitting on the cutting room floor and that Fox spent a considerable amount of money on that train sequence. Somehow, a "Kinberg Cut" seems unlikley.
 

An Emotional Farewell?

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Scott Summers spends the vast majority of Dark Phoenix trying to track Jean down, but we never get to see them have any sort of emotional reunion. He protects her on the train and watches on as she battles Vuk, but her final act is to give Professor X a nod and she doesn't even look Cyclops' way! 

That wasn't always going to be the case, though, and here we get to see Scott seemingly trying to talk his girlfriend down or simply tell her how much he loves her before she powers up as Phoenix.
 

A Split Personality

X105


After inadvertently killing Mystique, Jean does sit in the rain crying and talking to herself, but one trailer featured her seemingly talking to the Phoenix as she asks, "Why did you make me do that?"

This appears to be a pretty strong indication that an earlier version of Dark Phoenix would have treated this power as a separate entity that Jean was battling with for control of her body. Perhaps that was just too similar to X-Men: The Last Stand, as it's basically just a superpower in this movie rather than a living force which uses its host to unleash its devastating abilities. 
 

Cyclops Vs. Professor X

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There's a lot of dialogue in all the movie's trailers that's absent from Dark Phoenix, but this was arguably the most noteworthy. In a scene hard to place in the version we got, Cyclops argues with Charles Xavier in Cerebro before the team's leader admits that he simply doesn't know what to do. 

Professor X is surely referring to Jean here and this may be an indication that she was really set to go off the deep end and do some terrible things (there are also hints in the trailers that Vuk would have manipulated her into destroying the team). Reports about the final act focusing on Charles, Scott, and Jean must be accurate, and this tension could explain why Scott renames the school.
 

X-Mansion In Ruins

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There are a few different shots of Professor X wearing this white shirt and looking worse for wear, but him wheeling himself around what appears to be an abandoned X-Mansion is very interesting indeed. Could it be that an earlier version of the movie would have ended with the team disbanding and him left alone? His chair was destroyed by Jean in the final act and that looks like a regular one.

With that in mind, this probably was from near the original version's conclusion, and while it would have been a somewhat dark ending for Charles, it would also be pretty fitting after his actions and could have even set him up as a villain in a sequel we'll now never get to see (thankfully). 
 

The New Brotherhood?

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This is actually an official still rather than a shot from the trailers, but it's still worth discussing. Magneto looks badly beaten up here so this must be after Jean crushed his helmet while he was still wearing it. It seems as if he's wheelchair bound and flanked not only by his Brotherhood, but X-Men members Nightcrawler, Storm, and Beast.

Were they going to leave the X-Men and join up with the Master of Magnetism, or was this simply from the final act as Storm and Nightcrawler also decided to take a stand against Jean at the UN? We'll now never know, but there's clearly a considerably different version of the film out there despite what some recent reports have said.
 

Jean Grey Powers Up

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As you'll no doubt recall, this was the first official image released by Fox via Entertainment Weekly. No matter how fans felt about the movie at the time, there was no denying how impressive this looked, and the first time Dark Phoenix was delayed, it was put down to these effects needing to be finished.

Well, this must have been too expensive or too close to Captain Marvel ,because the version of Jean we got looked nothing like this. Instead, there were just some cracks on her face and some cloud-like energy around her when she powered up. Perhaps Fox just misled us with these photos, but something tells us that this take on the titular character was scrapped due to those reshoots.

Did you guys notice any scenes missing from the trailers we haven't covered here? How different do you think the original cut might have been? Let us know in the comments section below.

Continue reading below for a look at how Dark Phoenix
kills the X-Men franchise...and how Marvel Studios can save it!

 

How Dark Phoenix Kills The Franchise

It Fails To Embrace The Source Material

Dark-Phoenix-Saga


You don't need me to tell you that Dark Phoenix isn't a faithful adaptation of "The Dark Phoenix Saga," but that's honestly the least of this movie's problems. Kinberg is probably patting himself on the back for including an obscure race of aliens from the comics, but it doesn't feel like he's read a single one of them based on how these characters are handled. 

While Marvel Studios has taken huge liberties with a number of beloved storylines, they still manage to stay true to the source material. Beast being able to switch between his human and blue forms is an insult to the character, while Kinberg ignoring the fact that Jean already has the Phoenix's powers before giving them to her again via a cloud of space dust is utter gobbledygook. 

The costumes may look familiar, but it's as if they're only used because they had to get them in the trailers because they completely disappear after the first act in preference for street clothes. 
 

The Cast Is Completely Wasted

Jean-Phoenix


Dark Phoenix boasts an amazing cast made up of names like Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Nicholas Hoult, and countless others. 

Unfortunately, not a single one of them delivers the sort of performance you might expect, and there's not a single moment that gives them the chance to stretch their acting abilities beyond delivering stilted lines in scenes where they might as well have signs hanging around their necks reading, "We're only here for the money."

Honestly, though, being saddled with this sort of material is enough to make even the world's best actors (and there are some contenders for that crown in Dark Phoenix) want to just phone it in. Using talent like this in such an underwhelming manner is nothing short of unforgivable. 
 

Retelling A Story For Only One Person's Benefit

Simon


Kinberg has been saying for a while now that he wanted to retell this story because he feels he dropped the ball with it in X-Men: The Last Stand, but since when is that a good reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie? What we get in Dark Phoenix really isn't that different to the 2006 version (he even deliberately adds some parallels), and this just comes across like a total ego trip.

Kinberg wanted to focus on "The Dark Phoenix Saga" in The Last Stand but was forced to add that subplot about "The Cure." Dark Phoenix is basically him finally getting the chance to do what he wanted and, well, the result are just as bad and arguably worse. 

If he'd had an idea to tell this story over a number of movies, that would have been something, but the second he saw the opportunity to jump in the director's chair and have control of this storyline, his ego clearly got the best of him and the results speak for themselves. 
 

The Same Old Mistakes

Cast-DP


Marvel Studios is not perfect. They've made their fair share of mistakes over the years, but they learn from them. After Iron Man 2 was criticised for spending too much time setting up The Avengers, they cooled off on being so heavy handed when it came to teasing the MCU's future and when Thor came under fire time and time again, he got rebooted in the critically acclaimed Thor: Ragnarok.

Dark Phoenix does not learn from past mistakes and instead repeats ones we've seen in these X-Men movies on countless occasions. Important subplots are ignored, character motivations change to suit the story and not their actual personalities, and we get another of those endings (a tease about Jean surviving) you just know wouldn't have been followed up on in a satisfying manner.

Remember when Mystique was supposed to have "rescued" Wolverine from Weapon X? Just like that was dropped, I would put money on the next X-Men movie - had it happened - starting with Jean once again a member of the X-Men. It's just ridiculous. 
 

It Brings Nothing New To The Table

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There are a lot of superheroe movies out there these days, so doing something new is no easy feat. However, just like Avengers: Endgame introduced time-travel to the genre and Aquaman utilised state of the art special effects to take us beneath the sea, Dark Phoenix could have easily gone down a far more exciting route. 

Well, despite introducing a cosmic element, Kinberg keeps the action squarely on Earth when he could have very easily delivered the first instalment of the franchise to take the heroes into space.

It would have been amazing to see the likes of Professor X and Cyclops in that setting, and he could have easily introduced the Starjammers (giving Scott a subplot about his missing father) and explored Jean's powers in a satisfying manner before setting the stage for her to turn "Dark." 
 

What Marvel Studios Needs To Do

A Fresh Take On The Franchise

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This is going to be tough, but Marvel Studios will have to go back to the drawing board in order to deliver a version of the X-Men we haven't seen before. After all, pretty much every major team member has been featured on screen and we've seen both an established version of the group and an origin story for a much earlier iteration. 

Keeping things simple by putting the focus on the original five might be smart, especially as Angel and Iceman's screentime has been limited. However, it will still be tough to have Charles Xavier lead the team as the X-Mansion, Cerebro, and everything that entails is extremely familiar.

So, what if the "X-Men" are just a team of young mutants who come together to try and protect their people and aren't actually recruited by Professor X until a second or third movie? It would be a different approach, but one that would be something we obviously haven't seen before now. 
 

No More Magneto

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I love Magneto. He's one of the Marvel Universe's greatest villains and there's a lot Marvel Studios could do with him, but the problem is that he's had a significant role in every single X-Men movie, and going back to that well (regardless of how great it would be to see a comic accurate version fighting the team) isn't going to excite the general audience. 

There are ways to include Magneto without repeating the past; what if it's him the X-Men are initially recruited by before realising he's a villain, for example? We could also meet him as a young man since that Holocaust survivor origin story won't work now as he would have to be an elderly man. Either way, it might just be best to save him for much further down the line. 
 

A Brand New Villain

Sinister


So, if not Magneto, who should the X-Men square off with on the big screen? 

Well, Marvel Studios has a wealth of bad guys to choose from, including Mister Sinister, Cassandra Nova, Proteus, Sabretooth, Apocalypse (who desperately needs to be rebooted), and countless others. Given their habit of making over classic villains in inventive new ways, we could even see someone like Onslaught, and Mojo would be a brilliant, unexpected choice. 

In recent years, Kevin Feige has made a great deal of effort to escape those criticisms about underwhelming foes for our favourite heroes, and I'm sure they could nail any one of these baddies. 
 

Make Every Mutant Count

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There are a long list of X-Men characters we all want to see Marvel Studios do justice on screen, but it would be silly to introduce too many of them too soon. That's going to disappoint some fans (especially if we only get the original five and a handful of cameos) but it's essential that every mutant count this time around as that's not been the case on Fox's watch.

Professor X's school is full of regular looking kids who are supposedly mutants, and I've lost count of how many X-Men and members of Magneto's Brotherhood who have been glorified background extras.

Remember Toad? The original Sabretooth? Pyro? Iceman? The prevailing theme there is that they're all great characters who weren't given the spotlight they deserve because they were only included for a cool action scene or in a bid to appease fans wanting to see their favourite characters on screen.
 

Don't Go Anywhere Near Simon Kinberg

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Dear God, can you imagine? Kinberg reportedly has some sort of deal where he'll receive a producing credit on any future X-Men projects, but there's no way Marvel Studios could be foolish enough to bring him back on board the franchise, especially after Dark Phoenix has crashed and burned. 

After helming this mess of a movie, having him anywhere near these characters would be a horrible mistake as he's proved numerous times that he doesn't understand them. Luckily, common sense says that Feige will turn to a new creative team for the next iteration of the X-Men, while carefully overseeing this reboot to make sure they're done right. 

As for Kinberg, he shouldn't be allowed to touch another major franchise ever again. 
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knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 6/10/2019, 8:03 AM
didn't see it good people .... how bad was it ? i haven't found one positive review yet :/
Reeds2Much
Reeds2Much - 6/10/2019, 8:30 AM
@knocturnalzen10 - So far the nicest thing anyone has said about it is that it isn't as bad as Last Stand.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/10/2019, 8:36 AM
@knocturnalzen10 - I haven't either but my roommate did and said its just BLAND. It just exists and is emblematic of the very epitome of mediocrity.

it made him want a break from the X-Men for a while.
knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 6/10/2019, 8:53 AM
@BlackBeltJones - yikes smh :/

@reeds2much i've seen a few like Jermy Johns say he preferred last stand because it had something of a storyline ....

i'll probably TNT this .... it's sad when you see great characters get this type of sub-par efforts for $$$$$
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/10/2019, 9:01 AM
@knocturnalzen10 - My roommate said The Last Stand was at least never boring. You knew those characters, had connected to a good amount of them.

He didn't care about the kids in DP at all. The movie as a whole just meandered along. I'll Kodi this or wait for it on tv.
knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 6/10/2019, 9:10 AM
@BlackBeltJones - yep
realDonaldDuck
realDonaldDuck - 6/10/2019, 11:34 AM
@knocturnalzen10 - In my opinion, it wasn’t as bad as everyone says it is. The final battle was well done, but the first two acts were a complete bore that I almost fell asleep from. I can see what the film was trying to do, but it failed completely in its goal. Magneto is the best character in the film in my opinion.
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 6/10/2019, 11:59 AM
@knocturnalzen10 - It's not that bad. It's just not very good. It's OK. There are some enjoyable scenes, and you leave thinking about what could have been, and i think that's where many feel disappointed. IF you go, leave behind any expectations that this film (i) honors the Dark Phoenix canon (it doesn't) and (ii) builds its characters. If you do that, you should find it to be an OK movie. The action sequences are actually well choreographed. Zimmer's soundtrack is really epic.
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 6/10/2019, 11:59 AM
@realDonaldDuck - Fassbender did a terrific job. McAvoy too.
knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 6/10/2019, 12:18 PM
@GeneralZod @realDonaldDuck- ok thanks good sirs .... i'm not sure if i'll want to invest currency in the film but it's good to see some see glimmers of shinning spots in this film.
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 6/10/2019, 12:30 PM
@knocturnalzen10 - That's probably the right way to sum it up.
Kumkani
Kumkani - 6/10/2019, 8:10 AM
For some reason this image is emblematic of the entire FOX-Men movies

DVonShakari
DVonShakari - 6/10/2019, 9:04 AM
@DnA - looks like they're about to dance
Forthas
Forthas - 6/10/2019, 8:10 AM
We will see these things in the "Singer cut"
SpideyPuffsMJ
SpideyPuffsMJ - 6/10/2019, 8:16 AM
There are gonna be more articles about this movie than people who have seen it.
Chewtoy
Chewtoy - 6/10/2019, 8:40 AM
@BlackBeltJones - Yeah, I had just read that... the industry post-mortem reports have begun.

One interesting bit in there pins some blame on James Cameron:

“At first, the movie had a release date of Nov. 2, 2018. With more work needed on the movie, it was pushed to Feb. 14, 2019. Then, with marketing already underway, Fox pushed the release date to June 3, 2019. Initially, the studio messaged that the move was to take advantage of a Chinese release and hopes for a strong global performance.

However, insiders tell THR that the move was to placate James Cameron, Fox’s most important filmmaker, and his concerns for his movie, Alita: Battle Angel. According to one source, Cameron felt Alita would lose horribly when facing a December opening weekend that included Aquaman and Bumblebee, with Mary Poppins Returns opening up two days earlier. He wanted his expensive movie shifted. Stacey Snider, according to this source, obliged, giving Alita the February date and moving Dark Phoenix to June. “Emma, Hutch and Simon begged her not do it,” says this source.”
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/10/2019, 8:42 AM
@Chewtoy - Shows how much power Cameron has.

Still, it sounds like they had a rough o off it with this thing even before Cameron started pushing his weight around.No work was done wot build up to any of this with the previous films. The blame mostly still falls on Kinberg and company imo.
knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 6/10/2019, 9:00 AM
@BlackBeltJones - sounds ironic that Cameron may really like to "SINK SHIPS"
Ryguy88
Ryguy88 - 6/10/2019, 9:28 AM
@Chewtoy - DP seemed to be everyone's bitch: had to move dates, change character names and an entire act to appease others.
Chewtoy
Chewtoy - 6/10/2019, 9:29 AM
@BlackBeltJones - The new X-men cast Series was weirdly managed, that is true. The decade jumps made everything feel disjointed, and nothing naturally lead to follow ups.

Another thing I found interesting in that article was the report of meetings within the company to figure out what had gone wrong with Apocalypse leading to it making $200m less than Days of Future Past. One big thing that stands out to me is that DoFP made $400m more than First Class, and I personally would pin most of that on the return of the original cast, especially, Stewart, McKellan and Jackman. *That* felt like an event... plus seeing the original Jean Grey, and Cyclops, and Beast at the end... having the timeline fixed so that the s**t version of the Phoenix stuff from the Last Stand never happened.

And then... they ignored that restored future instead of following up on it. We went back to the less exciting cast in the past, and stayed there, likely for budget reasons (the all new cast was far cheaper, I’m sure.). Audiences would have cared had they gone back and done a new film with the restored cast... Jean and Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Storm... maybe be smart and add Deadpool’s Colossus and NTW, and that was the cast that took on Apocalypse in 2016...

What might have been. Ah well.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/10/2019, 9:38 AM
@Chewtoy - "ne big thing that stands out to me is that DoFP made $400m more than First Class, and I personally would pin most of that on the return of the original cast, especially, Stewart, McKellan and Jackman. *That* felt like an event..."

"And then... they ignored that restored future instead of following up on it. '

This franchise is just a bunch of missed opportunities and blatant ignorance, as well as not capitalizing on the few glimmers of good.
KWilly
KWilly - 6/10/2019, 8:44 AM
I get the feeling this movie was supposed to be much longer. I was surprised on how fast it went by. Felt like an episode of The Gifted or something, lol.
Ryguy88
Ryguy88 - 6/10/2019, 9:28 AM
@KWilly - I think it was supposed to be 2 movies originally
Kyos
Kyos - 6/10/2019, 9:32 AM
Just back from the cinema. I really liked Rocketman. Next up is Godzilla.
DoubleD
DoubleD - 6/10/2019, 9:35 AM
Won't see X-Men for 10 years.
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 6/10/2019, 11:46 AM
Reflecting on 'Dark Phoenix' a bit more, I sorta liked the Fake Skrulls in Dark Phoenix, who were at least really evil and were engaging in a secret invasion of Earth, than the Real Skrulls from 'Captain Marvel,' who were portrayed, basically, as undocumented migrants being persecuted because of their race, but otherwise were perfectly nice aliens that like to drink from plastic straws.
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