Shortly before its disastrous opening weekend, it was revealed the latest — and possibly last, at least with this cast — X-Men picture, Dark Phoenix, had to reshoot its ending because it was too similar to the one for Captain Marvel. We heard it was set in space, but were not humored with many specifics. In a new podcast with ReelBlend, as caught by /Film, however, Cyclops actor Tye Sheridan confirmed some details — and yes, there were Skrulls.
Previously, actor James McAvoy, a.k.a. Young Professor X, said the original ending took place in space, just as Captain Marvel did, and that that was what caused Dark Phoenix’s much-delaying reshoots. But according to Sheridan — and his admittedly fuzzy memory — the real problem was that it involved the Skrulls, the bad but secretly good aliens Brie Larson’s MCU hero encountered in a movie that made a lot more money. (This, of course, was before the Disney-Fox merger that now makes it kosher for the X-Men to hobnob with the surviving Avengers.)
“It’s really hard for me to remember what the ending of this movie is,” Sheridan prefaces his account before launching into a hazy play-by-play:
“Originally, it was scripted that Charles and Scott go to the U.N. because — man, I’m totally going to mess this up — they go to the U.N. because they’re going to try to tell the President that, ‘Hey, we’re under attack by aliens and, they’ve now captured Jean Grey.’ Or, you know, whatever it is that we’re going to tell him. And then Jean comes down in the front of the U.N., and causes… there is this huge battle between the guards at the U.N. and Jean Grey, and all the guards turn out to be Skrulls. And then Jean and Scott are — Scott is fighting Skrulls in the fountain. He gets thrown into the fountain in front of the U.N. And then Jean comes down and basically fights all of the Skrulls off, and then blasts back off into space. [She] basically says goodbye to Scott and Charles. And then it’s all over, I guess.”
That is a bit different from McAvoy’s account, which he described as “more of a cosmic story” that “ended in space in a much more significant way.” (Although, perhaps when he said “in a much more significant way,” he meant “at all.”)
In any case, that’s not how Dark Phoenix ended, which you’d know if you bought one of the few tickets for the film during its franchise-record low opening weekend. But the good news is that you did get to see the Skrulls in a movie a ton of people worldwide did see, and enthusiastically so. So, how long until X-Men stans on Twitter are crying for the “Snyder Cut”?
(Via /Film)