It seems that the X-Men are cursed to never have a good adaptation of The Dark Phoenix saga, with both X-Men: Dark Phoenix and X-Men: The Last Stand being relative failures for the franchise. Simon Kinberg, who wrote both films, reflects on how to best adapt the story.
Simon Kinberg’s first attempt at adapting The Dark Phoenix saga was with 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. While certainly a fun enough film, the movie lacked a lot of the depth of prior entries in the trilogy and is largely considered the worst of the bunch. He had another chance to adapt the story with X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which was such a critical and commercial bomb it practically handed the X-Men to the MCU on a silver platter. Kinberg recently reflected on these failures, revealing he doesn’t think The Dark Phoenix saga can be told in one movie:
“The idea of doing Dark Phoenix as a series is fascinating because what I felt in constructing the movie, and even initially when writing the movie, was that it required more than one movie to tell that story,” Kinberg told JoBlo.com. “I think to do it in a way that was really loyal to the comic is to make it as intergalactic as the book and to really get into the Hellfire Club.”
“There’s so many different aspects of the story, right? They have to be excised when you’re telling a two-hour version of it. But, the idea of doing a four-hour, if it were two movies or doing an eight-hour limited series or 10 hours, would really allow you to get into all of the different elements of the original book and original run.”
Fans have long been begging for a true X-Men limited series, especially one with the budget of modern streaming shows. While X-Men ’97 is set to expand the world of the mutants through Disney Plus, It’s not likely The Dark Phoenix saga will be adapted in the MCU anytime soon due to its reputation. Hopefully whoever writes it next is able to learn from Simon Kinberg’s mistakes.
What can fans expect from X-Men ’97?
The final episode of the original series saw the X-Men saying goodbye to Charles Xavier as he left with Lilandra to visit the Shi’Ar homeworld. X-Men ’97 will pick up where the original series left off and promises to feature some of the most iconic villains from the X-Men universe, including Mister Sinister, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Callisto and Valerie Cooper.
Fans can look forward to the return of some of their favorite voice actors from the original series, including Cal Dodd, Lenore Zann, George Buza, Adrian Hough, Christopher Britton, Catherine Disher, Chris Potter, Alison Sealy-Smith, and Alyson Court. In addition, X-Men ’97 will include the voice talents of Jennifer Hale, Anniwaa Buachie, Ray Chase, Matthew Waterson, JP Karliak, Holly Chou, Jeff Bennett and AJ LoCascio.
X-Men ’97 was originally slated to premiere in the fall of 2022, but has been pushed back with no official release date. With Marvel reducing its Disney Plus output, X-Men ’97 is now expected to debut sometime in 2024.
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