By all accounts, Dark Phoenix is not a good movie, scoring the worst reviews the X-Men franchise had ever seen while going down in the history books as the single biggest box office bomb of 2019.
Writer and director Simon Kinberg was found to be way out of his depth making his feature debut behind the camera on a $200 million comic book adaptation, while villain Jessica Chastain didn’t even know the name of her character until after the movie was released. Despite that, the pair appear to have formed quite the working relationship.
Kingberg wrote, produced and directed upcoming actioner The 355, with Chastain headlining as well as being part of the producorial team, and they’re teaming up again for a hot new genre film. As per Deadline, the duo will produce new thriller Wayland, but Michael Showalter is directing from Kinberg’s script, and Chastain has yet to commit to an on-camera role.
There aren’t many more details than that, but it’s described as being an ensemble piece with shades of A Simple Plan and Knives Out. Kinberg has proven to be very inconsistent, but Showalter is a solid pair of hands to bring Wayland to the big screen after Lionsgate reportedly shelled out a hefty sum of money to acquire the package.
