Now that Logan has succeeded in blowing us all away, our attention turns to the next mainline X-Men movie, which we’ve been referring to as “Supernova” for the past couple months. But unlike premature reports saying Simon Kinberg will direct, it seems like there was some legitimacy to the subtitle – albeit with a twist.
In a recent interview with /Film, Kinberg stated that “Supernova” was pretty much a code name given to the project, a bit of calculated misdirection:
“It’s not called Supernova. One of the things we do when we make these X-Men movies, to be totally candid, is — any of these movies, it’s on Star Wars, too — is you come up with fake names to throw people off the scent and when you’re out making the movie, the signs that show you where the locations are say Nova, or whatever the fake title is, and people figure it out, and I don’t even know why we do it anymore.
“But at any rate, it’s not called Supernova. That was the code name for it. There’s yet another code name now. What I can tell you is that we’re in early stages of prep on it, and that it’s something that Hutch and I specifically have been talking about, as the producers of it and me as the writer of it, since post-production on Apocalypse, what the story would be and how would do something bold and radical and expand the universe in the same way that Logan feels bold and radical and certainly Deadpool does as well. And that’s where we are with it.”
Although “Supernova” would’ve been a catchy name, it’s vital that we realize Fox has made a habit in recent years of subtitling X-Men movies to honor the comic book storylines they’re loosely adapting. Whether they be verbatim like First Class or Days of Future Past, or more subtle like Apocalypse, we pretty much know what they’re going for. Actually, the latter one was originally intended to be subtitled Age of Apocalypse, but you can thank Avengers: Age of Ultron for putting a damper on that.
It’s due to this continuing trend that we must give credence to the recent chatter saying that the Dark Phoenix storyline will be used as the basis for the next film. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise us if that ends up being the final subtitle.
Interestingly enough, Kinberg later elaborated on this very topic:
“Well, I can’t comment on what we’re doing with this next X-Men movie, but I think a way to talk about it potentially, is to talk about X-Men: The Last Stand, and then that being a Dark Phoenix movie that we didn’t get quite right. I think of maybe a few mistakes we made in that movie — and every movie has mistakes — but the main mistake we made in that movie was taking the Dark Phoenix story, which is such a vast and profound saga, and making it the subplot of the movie as opposed to the main plot of the movie. I think if we were to make a Dark Phoenix movie in the future, it would be a Dark Phoenix movie about her struggle, and really should be the A plot and the primary of the movie.”
To say that The Last Stand dropped the ball on the Dark Phoenix arc was an understatement. But from what we saw in the final act of Apocaylpse, it definitely looks like they’re heading in this direction. Still, one has to wonder if the studio will make use of grandiose concepts such as the Shi’ar Empire or keep it simpler, yet finding a way to adapt the beloved X-Men tale.
