X-Men Dark Phoenix - 8 Things It Must Do
The second time's the charm?
The X-Men franchise needs a new excellent entry into their series, following the colossal disappointment that was X-Men: Apocalypse. Although Deadpool and Logan were both highly praised and commercially successful, the more central X-Men films are much more uneven in terms of quality.
When Fox announced that the next film would focus on the incredibly beloved Dark Phoenix Saga, fans were immediately and appropriately apprehensive. After all, this is the studio that already completely failed their first attempt at it with the dismal X-Men: The Last Stand. Furthermore, both Origins: Wolverine and Apocalypse were terrible attempts to adapt popular comic book storylines to the movie screen.
It's important to remain optimistic, however. Days of Future Past was successfully adapted, even with the decision to make Wolverine the main character instead of Kitty Pryde. Even though Fox could very well mess everything up (again), they also have every opportunity to hit it out of the park, so to speak.
However, there are a number of things that absolutely must be done if X-Men Dark Phoenix is going to succeed. All of these are things that can still be accomplished, as the film is still in process of casting and has not yet begun filming as of this writing.
8. Focus Entirely On The Dark Phoenix Saga
One of the biggest problems with X-Men: The Last Stand was its insistence to cram two giant storylines into one movie. Jean Grey's transformation into the Dark Phoenix was completely sidelined so that the mutant cure storyline could take center stage. As a result, neither was done particularly well.
Shoehorning multiple stories into a single movie is still an unfortunate trend in order to appeal to a wider audience and increase ticket sales. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Batman v Superman all fell victim to this as well. Rather tellingly, none of those films ended up being particularly popular.
In literally naming their film "X-Men: Dark Phoenix," perhaps Fox has already figured this out. Jean Grey should be front and center for the film, and although there can be sub-plots, they should in no way take precedent.
There's also the question of how the Dark Phoenix Saga will be adapted into a movie. Doing a page-to-screen translation ultimately might not work very well, especially given the cosmic and alien elements of the saga that have never been featured in any film of the franchise thus far.
The idea that Phoenix is a being inside of Jean Grey that will manifest if she ever loses control of her powers is an ideal approach, especially as it has already been set up in X-Men: Apocalypse. If done right, the movie could feature a new iconic take on the classic story.