X-Men 3 screenwriter Zak Penn told Comic-Con attendees to forget the hype; "First, Warren Worthington's father will not be the antagonist in the new film. And if the casting of Kelsey Grammer wasn't a tip, the Hank McCoy of X3 will be different than the one shown in X2. Penn also made note that he's read a number of message boards and sites on the web and that he's surprise how much 'news' out there is completely false,” according to IGN.
Penn also said he’s "incredibly honored" at the chance to bring the Dark Phoenix story to the film, according to Comics Continuum.
"The Chris Claremont and John Byrne run, that run of comic books, totally blew me away," Penn said. "Especially when I read the Dark Phoenix, which I'm working on now."
There'll be changes, however. "Anyone whose read the comic books knows that in the Dark Phoenix Saga -- which is not all of the movie, by the way; there's a lot of other stuff going on in the movie -- you have the Shi'ar Empire and Empress Lilandra and starcrafts and galaxies being destroyed.
"There's no way, if you've seen X-Men 1 and X-Men 2 and are not a fan of the comic book, that that would make any sense to you if we tried to do that in X-Men 3. I hope I'm not ruining it for anyone, but there will not be intergalactic battles and star destroyers. I keep reading people saying it should take place on the moon. If you saw X-Men 2, does that movie seem like it was heading towards taking place on the moon?
"Bryan (Singer, director) and the people who worked on those movies -- and that includes all the actors -- created a tone that's probably one of the most well-realized tone of any comic-book movie. The X-Men movies are incredibly consistent in their tone. That's one of the best things about them. And it's our job and we argue about it every single day, about how to keep that tone going. And it's not easy. It's really not easy. The bar is incredibly high."
Meanwhile, do expect to see a lot of Grammer as the Beast. "X-Men is not a franchise where its parade of a cameos," he said. "It's not like it, 'Hey, I'm Beast. I'm here to save the day.' These characters have to live and breath in the same world that Nightcrawler lived in and the same world the other characters lived in."
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