Dark Phoenix in Cinemas June 5th

The twelfth instalment in the X-Men franchise written and directed by Simon Kinberg (writer of Jumper, and X-Men: Apocalypse) is due for release on June 5^th, 2019. Dark Phoenix will be Kinberg’s directorial debut and will be released by Walt Disney Studios, having been produced by 20^th Century Fox (now a subsidiary of Disney) on a modest budget of $200m.

The plot is set a decade after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse and centres around a young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) as she fights an internal entity known as the Dark Phoenix. In the year 1992, after being struck by a strange solar flare during a rescue mission in space, Jean Grey is transformed into a dangerously powerful and unstable mutant, losing all self-control and becoming a hazard to those around her. The story is based on the original Dark Phoenix Saga of comic books published between January and October 1980.

Most of the cast of the alternate past timeline will be returning for Dark Phoenix including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Evan Peters, plus a new addition to the franchise Jessica Chastain who portrays an alien shapeshifter capable of manipulating the phoenix within Jean Grey.

The film is projected to gross $50m in domestic box office takings in its first week which would represent 25% of the film’s budget and it will be the first movie in the franchise which won’t feature at least a cameo or a reference to Logan or Wolverine. Hans Zimmer composed the score for the movie even after stating that he was retiring from composing for superhero movies. Writer and director Simon Kinberg convinced the legendary German composer to write the score after offering him the opportunity to utilise an idea which he had never used previously.

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The future of the X-Men franchise is, as yet, uncertain. Shortly after Disney’s acquisition of 20^th Century Fox, CEO Bob Iger stated that he hoped to integrate the X-Men franchise into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the New Mutants reboot. Dark Phoenix will be the final film in the current X-Men continuity, not counting the Deadpool franchise. 

The film will be released in the US alongside The Secret Life of Pets 2 and comedy drama Late Night starring Emma Thompson. It will be released worldwide with the title X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but will be shortened to simply Dark Phoenix for release in the US.