Dark Phoenix underwent an extensive amount of reshoots. Now, James McAvoy is saying part of that was due to Dark Phoenix having a copycat ending to another movie.
In the troubled timeline of Dark Phoenix, the movie underwent more reshoots than the average movie typically goes for. After the movie’s release date was pushed back several times, fans were left seriously wondering what was going on with this movie.
As we got closer to the release date, fans learned that the ending was changed from an outer space adventure to something a little more down to Earth (literally). Now, thanks to James McAvoy, we know why that change was made.
According to Yahoo Movies UK, McAvoy revealed that Dark Phoenix’s ending was a bit too similar to another recent superhero movie. Without revealing which one, he said:
"The end changed a hell of a lot. The finale had to change… There was a lot of overlap and parallels with another superhero movie that came out… a while ago."
Before McAvoy could go on, he was cut off by Michael Fassbender, who joked that there were spies on set who stole their ideas.
Every single person I spoke to about the #DarkPhoenix reshoots towed the company line... except these two. If only I'd spoken with them first and not last on the day.
— Tom Butler (@TomButler) May 29, 2019
Based on the consensus online, Captain Marvel seems to be the likely culprit here. It’s an epic space adventure, with a good portion of the third act happening in space. That’s before you realize that these are both cosmically powered female superheroes who both glow when they’re at the peak of their power and create really big flares when they release their energy.
As Yahoo suggests, it could be a myriad of other superhero movies (there have been a ton released recently, with many of them happening in space), but it seems like Captain Marvel has the most parallels to Jean Grey’s Dark Phoenix.
Despite that explanation, earlier today, another side of the story was shared. Digital Spy released an interview with X-Men producer Hutch Parker, who had a completely different reason for why the movie’s ending was changed from being in space to being on a military train:
"We actually shifted that to be back on Earth, most notably, so that we can involve our main characters and see them come together. We wanted the family to be the thing that motivated Jean to finally embrace her identity, and finally, to allow love to be what allows her to transcend and evolve.But in the first iteration, they weren’t present when she’s going through a lot of the third act stuff. So we rejigged it so that we could dramatize the degree to which this divided family had come back together for her… that she could witness that, and, and bring [Jessica] Chastain into that sequence."
Sophie Turner, Jessica Chastain and Tye Sheridan also all agreed in the Yahoo interview that the reshoots helped the movie to become more cohesive and connected. It’s not to say the reshoots won’t make the movie feel more connected, but it shows that there could be more to the story than we thought. Let’s just hope Marvel Studios never has this issue when it finally gets its hands on the X-Men.
We may never know how the original ending of Dark Phoenix was supposed to go down. But hey, at least we get an exciting train scene.