With two new X-Men movies on the horizon and movement on both over at 20th Century Fox, franchise producer Simon Kinberg is reportedly attached to helm the next endeavor for the studio, X-Men: Dark Phoenix. The film will mark Kinberg's debut at the helm following the start of his involvement on Fox's X-Men saga in 2006.
The mythology has been played around with ever since the first film directed by Bryan Singer and eventually took a turning point between X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand. Actress Famke Janssen's role as Jean Grey struggled with the length and brevity of her powers as a telekinetic until eventually transforming into the penultimate anomaly, the Phoenix, and appeared a few more times next to actor Hugh Jackman between the main timeline as well as the actor's 2013 Wolverine spin-off sequel.
The new film, which will be shot in Montreal this October ahead of a November 2, 2018 release will focus on the succession of the character per the Dark Phoenix story with actress Sophie Turner reprising after taking the reigns in Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse. Deadline's exclusive also confirms the return of actress Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Alexandra Shipp as Orora Munroe, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler.
Actress Jessica Chastain (The Huntsman: Winter's Tale) is also in talks to join the cast in a new role as a villain.
Kinberg, currently producing David Leitch's Deadpool 2 and John Boone's X-Men: The New Mutants, is also producing with Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner.
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