Many of today’s movie trailers have certainly been known to cross the line and give away too much before audiences get a chance to buy a ticket. This happened in a big way during the marketing of Dark Phoenix when one trailer spoiled the death of Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique at the hand of Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey.
No one slipped up. Director Simon Kinberg has said that he made the decision to reveal this early plot point in order show the high stakes the X-Men will be dealing with during the last film in the franchise. Mystique won’t be the only character to say goodbye in Dark Phoenix either. Check out Kinberg’s tease:
There are certainly other major casualties in this.
Looks like Dark Phoenix won’t be messing around. The movie is set up with tragedy for the team and it will only continue as the film rolls along, perhaps with even more beloved characters kicking the bucket as the long-running franchise closes out and makes room for the comic title joining the MCU sometime in the future.
While it was a surprise to see Mystique die in the trailer, it’s no shock that the character was going to be killed off in this X-Men film. Jennifer Lawrence has been vocal about her distaste with being turned blue in the harrowing makeup process since 2011, and has reportedly wanted out of the franchise for some time. The actress already has a convenient exit with the Disney/Fox merger sure to change things up, but maybe that wasn’t enough and she needed it to be official on screen.
Simon Kinberg’s words to EW do beg the question: Who else is going to die? Will the franchise go so far as to kill off the franchise’s huge players, Charles Xavier and Magneto? Though James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are likely to be finishing off their time as these characters with Dark Phoenix, will their last moments be their deaths?
There are tons of other X-Men characters in play here who could see their demises as well -- such as Nicholas Hoult’s Beast, Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, Tye Sheridan’s Cyclops and Alexandra Shipp’s Storm. Considering J-Law was on the table to be killed off, who knows if they’ll make it out either.
The movie already has the tough job of creating a satisfying conclusion to the Fox franchise that started with 2000’s X-Men. The film has undergone massive reshoots and multiple release date shifts, and it may face the lowest earning opening weekend for the franchise to date, as The Secret Life of Pets 2 aims to be its biggest competition on its debut.
The movie follows the team as they venture on a space mission and Jean gets hit by a solar flare, leaving her with a new powerful burst of energy and powers to attempt to control. When she kills Mystique, the X-Men must figure out what to do about her: kill her or save her somehow? Dark Phoenix hits theaters on June 7.
