With its release just two weeks away, Fox has dropped a new clip from Dark Phoenix today and it teases a rift between the mutants that threatens to tear their kind apart. What else is new, right?
The minute-long clip – found above – sees Professor X (James McAvoy) and his X-Men, consisting of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), facing off against Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and his Brotherhood. We haven’t met two of his allies before, but Beast (Nicholas Hoult) has defected to the dark side. Charles Xavier warns his friend from attacking the out-of-control Jean Grey in a public place, as the telepath says that “if you do this here, now, they’ll see us as monsters. Fighting like freaks on the streets of New York.”
His old friend turned foe Erik Lensherr isn’t there to listen to Xavier’s words, however. “You’re always sorry, Charles,” Magneto retorts, in a line previously heard in the trailers. “And there’s always a speech. But nobody cares anymore.”
Thanks to the (controversially) spoiler-y previews, we can piece together the context for this scene. After her Phoenix powers make her unstable, Jean accidentally kills Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). As both men loved Raven, Hank McCoy sides with Magneto in order to stop Jean whatever it takes so she doesn’t kill again. Obviously, Charles and his team want to save her. Hence this confrontation.
Charles mentions Erik’s “homeland” in the clip as well, which refers to Genosha, Magneto’s island that’s a safe community for mutants. At the beginning of Dark Phoenix, the X-Men will actually be popular for once as they’ve become a proper superhero team. When they help out some stranded astronauts in space, though, the Phoenix awakens and unravels their lives. Jessica Chastain’s mysterious villain won’t help matters by manipulating Jean for her own ends, either.
Dark Phoenix, which marks the end of the 20-year-old X-Men saga, hits theaters on June 7th.
