Latest X-Men: Dark Phoenix Poster Suggests Fox Prequel Will Drop ‘X-Men’ From Its Title

It’s looking increasingly likely that X-Men: Dark Phoenix will ditch the ‘X-Men’ label and simply release as ‘Dark Phoenix’.

News of Fox’s as-yet-unannounced moniker began circulating at CinemaCon, where a suitably fiery title card showed the words ‘Dark Phoenix’ replete with a red-hot flame rising nearing the ‘P’ of Phoenix, while the letter ‘X’ doubled as the famous X-Men insignia.

That appears to be the prequel’s official logo, after all, as a second promo poster has now been unearthed from the ongoing Licensing Show in Las Vegas (h/t Heroic Hollywood), which drops ‘X-Men’ entirely for a cleaner, more evocative title. Perhaps this can also be construed as a sure-fire sign that Simon Kinberg’s prequel-sequel will be the final X-Men movie to hit theaters before the much-touted merger between Disney and Fox? It’s too soon to tell, but here’s a closer look at that latest one-sheet:

Regardless of the film’s title, Simon Kinberg believes X-Men: Dark Phoenix is much more loyal to its source material than, say, X-Men 3, as the director fully intends to introduce a hoard of alien characters (Shi’ar Empress Lilandra Neramani?) come 2019.

It’s much more loyal to the original comic than X-Men 3, which told the Dark Phoenix story. It’s a movie that involves extraterrestrial characters, which is not something that we’ve done in the X-Men franchise before, and is something that is a huge part of the Dark Phoenix saga in the comics.

Initially scheduled to arrive in November, X-Men: Dark Phoenix has since uprooted for February 14th, 2019 – the date once occupied by Fox’s long-gestating Gambit movie. There’s still hope for Remy LeBeau, mind you, after we learned that Simon Kinberg and his team hope to get the cameras rolling this summer.