The original Dark Phoenix ending would’ve had the X-Men fighting Skrulls

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

A few days after DARK PHOENIX’s franchise-low opening weekend there’s already been a ton of talk about what’s/who’s to blame and what the movie could’ve been. The latest X-Men outing had to go through some rather lengthy reshoots that ended up delaying the release, and all to change the movie’s big climax. Writer/director Simon Kinberg was one of the first to start talking about what once was (via io9), opening up about how the original ending resembled Marvel movies like CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and CAPTAIN MARVEL.

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On the surface DARK PHOENIX still shares some similarities with MARVEL, both being about women imbued with cosmic powers and who, after being taken advantage of for those powers, learns how to embrace them and become more powerful. But it wasn’t going to stop there, and actor Tye Sheridan (who plays Scott Summers/Cyclops) recently revealed during the ReelBlend podcast (via /Film) that the original climax found the team facing off against Skrulls, a group of shapeshifters that also appear in MARVEL.

 “It’s really hard for me to remember what the ending of this movie is. [laughs] Originally, it was scripted that Charles and Scott go to the U.N. because — man, I’m totally going to mess this up — they go to the U.N. because they’re going to try to tell the President that, ‘Hey, we’re under attack by aliens and, they’ve now captured Jean Grey.’ Or, you know, whatever it is that we’re going to tell him. And then Jean comes down in the front of the U.N., and causes… there is this huge battle between the guards at the U.N. and Jean Grey, and all the guards turn out to be Skrulls. And then Jean and Scott are — Scott is fighting Skrulls in the fountain. He gets thrown into the fountain in front of the U.N. And then Jean comes down and basically fights all of the Skrulls off, and then blasts back off into space. [She] basically says goodbye to Scott and Charles. And then it’s all over, I guess.”

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The final result of DARK PHOENIX does involve a race of aliens that can change their form to match humans, except here they aren’t Skrulls but rather a race known as the D’Bari. Perhaps this was all changed in the end so as to not draw comparisons with the other Marvel movie that would go on to make *way* more money than PHOENIX. Had the ending stayed how it was – with the team facing off against Skrulls at the U.N. – it probably wouldn’t have changed the product much. That still sounds too convoluted and would still take time away from Jean Grey, whose ending already feels unearned and buried underneath the stories and screentime of the other X-Men. But now that Disney is likely to do their own thing with the X-Men, maybe it won't be long before a new team actually does get to take on the Skrulls (should they turn out to be enemies after all), perhaps with Captain Marvel at their side. 

DARK PHOENIX is in theaters now.