Thanks to the delays to its release date, we now won’t see X-Men: Dark Phoenix until next year, so don’t expect a trailer for the next installment in Fox’s Marvel franchise for a while. Thankfully, then, we’ve got industrious fans like YouTuber Stryder, who’s made this epic concept trailer for the movie which paves the way for Jean Grey’s rebirth as the all-powerful entity of the title by recapping the story of the film series so far.
As the trailer reminds us, Sophie Turner first appeared as the young Jean in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse and from the beginning it was clear that the filmmakers were teasing her transformation into Dark Phoenix. By the end of the movie, of course, Jean had already started to access her Phoenix powers as she was able to disintegrate even an Omega-level mutant like Apocalypse.
This isn’t the first time that the seminal “Dark Phoenix Saga” has been adapted for the screen, though. 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand initially tackled the concept when Famke Janssen’s older version of Jean was resurrected after her heroic sacrifice in X-2. Stryder’s trailer recaps the events of The Last Stand as well, including shots of Kelsey Grammer’s Beast, Pyro and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
What’s more, for the sake of completion, there’s even a snippet from Deadpool 2 at the end of the video. While we don’t expect to see the Merc with a Mouth in Dark Phoenix, the recent sequel did surprisingly feature a tiny crossover with the mainline X-Men movies – as a bunch of mutants turned up for a silent, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. It would be fun if this pic returned the favor, but we just can’t see it happening.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is due for some extensive reshoots any day now, though even Sophie Turner recently admitted that she wasn’t sure what’s going on with that. If things go to plan, though, the uncanny heroes will be back in theaters on February 14th, 2019.