We reported last week that Angelina Jolie and Jessica Chastain are both in the run for a major role in the upcoming X-Men: Dark Pheonix movie.
And now we know that Jolie seems to be out of the running but Chastain is now looking favourite to fulfil the role which has been confirmed as Lilandra.
Who? Well…
She is the Empress, or Majestrix, of the Shi’ar Empire and shares a lifelong bond with the leader of the X-Men, Charles Xavier. She and Xavier were married but their marriage was annulled after the Cassandra Nova incident.
As the Empress, Lilandra is protected by the Imperial Guard, led by Gladiator.
Lilandra has often been a pivotal secondary character in the X-Men’s history, from her participation in the Phoenix Saga, to her role in Grant Morrison’s experimental and controversial run on New X-Men. Her role as one of Professor X’s most cherished loves has played a significant part in the development of both characters, as well as many of the plots throughout the X-Men books.
On top of this, we now know that Simon Kinberg, writer of several X-Men movies, Fantastic Four and a fair few of the episodes of Star Wars: Rebels, has been confirmed as director.
Despite being a writer, producer and big noise in the FOX Marvel and Star Wars worlds, this will be his first time behind a camera.
We also know that, as expected, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Tye Sheridan will all return for this one.
Kinberg is no stranger to the Dark Pheonix story already, having written X-Men: The Last Stand (he’s writing this one too) which is probably the lowest point of the franchise so far: “We ended up adding the cure plot into it so there were larger stakes and it included more of the X-Men. The Dark Phoenix story went from being the A-plot to the B-plot of the movie. What’s nice now is my hope is eventually we can tell that story again,” Kinberg has said.
Is this the first time the same story has been told twice in the same franchise?
Source: EW
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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