RUMOR: Jessica Chastain Playing Miss Sinister In X-Men: Dark Phoenix

What’s the one thing that Spectre and Star Trek Into Darkness had in common? You know, besides the CGI-laden spectacle and superheroic characters…

That’s right, each film attempted to conceal the identity of its villain by any means necessary, leading fans on a wild goose chase filled with red herrings and misdirection. Of course, history tells us that Spectre and Star Trek Into Darkness were anchored by Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Khan Noonien Singh, respectively, and the fact that their involvement had become something of an open secret leading up to release only reduced the dramatic impact of each reveal.

Is Dark Phoenix about to repeat the same mistake? We know that Simon Kinberg’s X-Men sequel has cast Jessica Chastain as its central antagonist, who has since been described as an “otherworldly shapeshifter who comes into contact with Phoenix.” Common logic dictated that that character is Shi’ar Empress Lilandra Neramani then, but now, we’re not so sure if that’s the case

On the latest episode of Meet the Movie Press, scoopster Jeff Sneider dropped a pretty interesting piece of information. File this one strictly in the rumor cabinet and take it with the usual grain of salt, but according to him, Chastain is playing Miss Sinister. And yes, that’s Miss, not Mr.

For those unfamiliar with the character, here’s a handy description from the Marvel Wiki:

No stranger to experimenting on human life, particularly that of mutants, the nefarious Mr. Sinister prepared a fail safe for if he should ever be killed – he created a virus containing his own DNA (and thus his own immensely powerful telepathic powers) to be injected into a host. His chosen host was Claudine Renko, a previously unknown woman and one of his test subjects. Taking the name Miss Sinister she became a new villain to foil the X-Men.

Again, this is strictly a rumor for now, but whoever it is that Chastain ends up playing, the two-time Oscar nominee apparently went to some pretty dark places while preparing for her Dark Phoenix role, saying the following in a recent interview.

Simon [Kinberg] and I were talking about the character and I said, ‘I keep thinking of the vet who tells you you need to put your dog down.’ There’s something very clinical about it.

What we can tell you with absolute certainty at the moment is that Dark Phoenix takes place roughly 10 years after the events of Apocalypse, at a time when our core group of mutants – namely Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters) – are celebrated as national heroes. That temporary fame doesn’t last long, though, as Xavier’s class of mutants are soon left facing the Phoenix, Jean Grey’s fierce alter-ego.

Expect X-Men: Dark Phoenix to blast off into space on February 14th, 2019 – after being hit with a sizable delay.