Everything We Know So Far About 'X-Men: Dark Phoenix'

Orignally, Dark Phoenix was supposed to drop on November 2, 2018, but difficulties in bringing the required actors back for reshoots meant they needed to make sure there was enough time for post-production work to be done properly, all of which contributed to postponing the release.

Don't let his lack of directorial experience worry you, though. Kinberg has been involved in a huge chunk of the X-Men franchise, writing or cowriting four of the movies and producing seven.

The 1980 series of comic book stories shows Jean Grey hit with a solar flare that brings about the full extent of her psychic powers. The story arc eventually sees her become a more powerful being, which she calls "Phoenix."

Her new supreme power makes her vulnerable to persuasion, though, and eventually leads to having to face off against the X-Men on several occasions as they try to control her potentially apocalyptic power and restore the humanity of Jean Grey.

"The Dark Phoenix Saga" was notoriously made into a side-plot in the underwhelming third X-Men movie, The Last Stand, cowritten by Kinberg. From comments Kinberg made, reported by Cinema Blend, it seems that this time around, the idea is to keep the movie more in line with the comic story.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that writer Zak Penn found the idea to put Dark Phoenix in X2 was hard to put aside, but ultimately, "it was too soon to go into the Phoenix story and it was too soon to get cosmic."

As mentioned above, the original "Dark Phoenix" story begins when Jean Grey is hit with a solar flare. As far as we can tell, this will happen in the film version, which may also include aliens for the first time in the franchise.

Granted, branching timelines can be confusing, but the end of Days of Future Past basically hit a reset on the original X-Men movies.

The way Simon Kinberg puts it according to Cinema Blend, things are "not leading, necessarily, toward exactly where we found Patrick Stewart and the X-Men at the beginning of X1. There are some things obviously that lead in that general direction that was part of sort of the philosophy I guess at the end of Days of Future Past is that you can’t fully change the course or current of the river but you can just divert it a little bit."

While contained within the same body, The Phoenix and Jean Grey are essentially two different personalities. One is a powerful, cosmic being with all the confidence in the universe, and the other is Jean Grey, a vulnerable young woman who worries about her boyfriend and how she fits in with the rest of the world.

While we saw the flickerings of a romance in X-Men: Apocalypse, it seems that the relationship between Jean and Scott will have matured quite a bit in the 9-year gap between movies. We'll also see Scott stepping up as the field leader of the X-Men.

From its lead, Jean Grey, to Mystique (played by a returning Jennifer Lawrence), to a new villain, Dark Phoenix is unabashedly interested in highlighting the so-called X-Women. In fact, that's what drew noted feminist Jessica Chastain to the movie in the first place.

Chastain was long rumored to be playing Lilandra, empress of an alien empire, but according to Chastain herself in comments on an Instagram post, that's not who she's playing.

As always, Magneto seems to be more than willing to push his fellow mutants to embrace their power, and in Dark Phoenix, he's poised to do the same for Jean.

Having previously been teased in a deleted scene in X-Men: Apocalypse, the light-manipulating pop star mutant is rumored to be played by Halston Sage.

In the comics, Black Queen and Red Lotus are both members of the mutant terrorist organization The Hellfire Club, which we last saw in X-Men: First Class.

Very few people actually know what this twist will be, but we're sure that it's all we'll be talking about come February.

Deadline has reported that with Disney acquiring 21st Century Fox, the plan is to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe absorb the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Deadpool franchises, although it's unclear exactly how or when that will all take place.