Simon Kinberg on the difficulties of condensing Dark Phoenix into one film

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Although THE NEW MUTANTS is still on the slate, it's safe to say that 20th Century Fox's X-MEN franchise came to an unceremonious end with Simon Kinberg's DARK PHOENIX. The film retold the events of the Dark Phoenix Saga through the eyes of the new cast, but it's no secret that the film went through some major reshoots and restructuring before it finally wound up in theaters.

While taking part in a live-stream watching of X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST over at IGN, Simon Kinberg also touched upon DARK PHOENIX, and given that there has been plenty of talk regarding the Snyder Cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE and the Ayer Cut of SUICIDE SQUAD, what chances do we have of getting a Kinberg Cut of DARK PHOENIX?

The movie they released was ultimately my vision for the film. That vision did change over the span of making the movie. There are other scenes that we shot, just as there are a lot of other scenes in [Days of Future Past] that we shot and didn't end up using. There were scenes we shot for that film and an ending that was quite different than the ending that was in the theatrical release. To release [a Kinberg Cut], it wouldn't be just be like we splice those scenes back in, because those scenes were never completed because of visual effects and sound – all of the technical aspects that go into completing films of this scale. It would take a whole lot of work, but I appreciate the support.

Simon Kinberg also said that the original intention was for DARK PHOENIX to span two movies, but that Fox elected to condense the story into one film, which wound up being challenging to pull off. "With every movie, there are things you wish you did differently," Kinberg said. "On every movie there are things you thought were great and perfect, and then you watch them and didn't think they were as strong as you imagined and you go a different way. Dark Phoenix was a hard movie because, in its initial concept when I wrote it, it was meant to be a two-part film. And then it suddenly became a one-part movie for reasons that weren't of my doing. Having to create around that massive change was a challenge in itself. All these movies are uniquely challenging."

While the X-MEN franchise as we know it is over, Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox has brought the franchise into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which means that it's only a matter of time before we see the mutants back on the big-screen. In regards to the X-MEN joining the MCU, Simon Kinberg said, "One of the things the MCU does so well, and I have such a profound respect as a fellow filmmaker and then as just a fan, is that they're really loyal to the comics. They also are very unafraid of a more supernatural or science fiction tonality to their movies. They don't feel like they need to ground them so much in a sort of physics-based reality. I think there's something very great and liberating and spectacular about that. I think the X-Men could be very cool if you brought in science fiction elements and even the beyond Earth elements of the X-Men. That's something as a fan I would love to see, because I don't know that we've ever fully done that in a fully committed way in the Fox X-Men canon."