The sale of 20th Century Fox to Disney comes at a time when the X-Men franchise is in the middle of a youth movement. While we don’t know where things will stand once the deal goes through, sources say Disney is being super selective on any Fox properties they may carry on, for now we still have X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants right around the corner.
New images have emerged for both films, which are taking the franchise in different directions. X-Men: Dark Phoenix hopes to move on past the dismal X-Men: Apocalypse with a story that tries to get right the classic “Phoenix Saga”, which Fox attempted to adapt (badly) years ago. New images from Empire reveal Jessica Chastain’s mysterious shape-shifting alien confronting James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier. Another looks like the potential demise of Magneto (Michael Fassbender), although I doubt it’s that simple, and the final image show Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) getting close. Considering she killed her former lover the last time she got all imbued with dark phoenix energy in X-Men: The Last Stand, maybe this is his way of staying on her good side.
Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) looks to be in mortal danger in the new photo from Josh Boone’s New Mutants. A superhero horror film that will potentially launch an entire trilogy, the film also stars Charlie Heaton as Cannonball, Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, and Henry Zaga as Sunspot, all seen here trying to revive their fallen comrade.
Boone spoke to USA Today and talked about his approach to making an X-Men genre flick, by dialing back on the superheroics and ramping up the scary stuff…
“These kids could care less about being X-Men. They’re so (messed) up and have had such horrible things happen, they’re just trying to figure out how to get out of this situation,” said Boone. “We just tried to pull this back and make it performance- and character-driven, and more grounded and credible than X-Men movies ever are.”
The New Mutants opens April 13th, followed by X-Men: Dark Phoenix on November 2nd.
