X-Men: Dark Phoenix’s Simon Kinberg On The Film’s Cosmic Storyline Preparing For The MCU

X-Men fans have been having it good this week. Not only have they gotten the first trailer for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, they've also gotten a synopsis to the movie, indicating a cosmic adventure for Professor X (James McAvoy) and his team. It's not much a surprise really considering that Dark Phoenix is taking notes from the true comic book origins of the Jean Grey's Phoenix saga.

However, the cosmos isn't something the X-Men franchise really explored before.

Speaking in an interview with IGN,Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg decided to open up about this cosmic terrain that his film is trying to explore, saying that the extraterrestrial narrative is something that the movie needs so that the story reaches its full potential.

"I always look to the comics obviously as the touchstones for the movies, and as you know and all fans know there is a lot of cosmic, extraterrestrial stories in the X-Men lore," Kinberg told the publication. "It's not something that we've explored in the past. It's something we certainly begin to explore in this movie and if it's appropriate to whatever the next movies would be then I would absolutely do that. It's something I think audiences have almost grown accustomed to now given that the Marvel [MCU] movies are so often now intergalactic."

While it's something totally new for X-Men, it does help the studio prepare for its inevitable transition towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Disney is currently processing its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, and Bob Iger has already planned to have Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige take charge of bringing in the X-Men to the MCU. Dark Phoenix stepping into the cosmos will definitely help ease the transition considering the fact that the MCU has long since played around with a cosmic universe in space.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is set to premiere on February 14, 2019.

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