Although the X-Men film franchise has proven to be among the most enduring and bankable in the superhero genre today, it’s impossible to deny that it’s experienced a few missteps along the way. Luckily, director Matthew Vaughn put the series back on track with 2011’s First Class, a flick that many would describe as a “soft reboot.” Followed soon after by Days of Future Past and Apocalypse (both directed by Bryan Singer), one could say that Fox is embracing the source material like never before.
Next on the agenda is that of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which we can only hope will right the wrongs of 2006’s The Last Stand. Granted, it’s been said the upcoming blockbuster will be a bit more “grounded” and less cosmic than the comic book arc serving as inspiration, but Simon Kinberg couldn’t possibly do more damage than Brett Ratner did, right?
Warranted concerns aside, it’s safe to say there’s a handful of mutants that spring to mind when one thinks of the most recent movies: Professor Charles Xavier, Magneto, Beast and Mystique. Now, while only Xavier is needed to make an ensemble X-Men film work, we can’t deny it’d feel weird to jettison any one of those mentioned after seeing so much development.
As it turns out, that sort of logic pretty much served as Jennifer Lawrence’s reason for returning, something she touched on when recently speaking with Digital Spy:
“My contract was up, I didn’t have to do another one, but if I didn’t do another one, what would her story be? I felt like I owed it to the fans, and I owed it to the character to follow her journey, to be fair to the movies, and not be like, ‘I don’t want to do another X-Men!’ And then I just never show up and everyone’s very confused about the Mystique they’ve been following for the last three films.”
The fact that she takes the fan base into account when making major career decisions is highly respectable, because actors leaving series midstream is certainly nothing new in Hollywood. That said, count us as being more enthused now to see X-Men: Dark Phoenix when it arrives in theaters on November 2, 2018.
