X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX Covers This Week's Entertainment Weekly; New Plot Details and More Revealed

This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly is taking a look at many of next year’s blockbusters, and the cover story is X-Men: Dark Phoenix. The magazine offers plenty of new details on the upcoming sequel, which is another partial adaptation of the iconic “Dark Phoenix” storyline from the comics. Here, we have info on the time setting, tone, Jessica Chastain’s villain, and more.

Dark Phoenix skips forward another decade, this time taking place in 1992. Now, the X-Men are national heroes, which leads to Charles Xavier’s ego growing and more extreme missions.

One of those missions takes place in outer space, finally taking the X-Men franchise beyond Earth. During the mission, Jean Grey’s power of the Phoenix will be unlocked.

As for the movie’s tone, Dark Phoenix is called the “most sinister and somber” installment of the franchise. Part of that includes a major twist that changes the course of the whole series. Could that include a funeral? “This is probably the most emotional X-Men we’ve done and the most pathos-driven,” actor James McAvoy says. “There’s a lot of sacrifice and a lot of suffering.”

Director Simon Kinberg says that Dark Phoenix has a longer post-production period – almost a year – in order to fully realize the visual effects particularly Jean’s transformation into Phoenix. He also credits Jennifer Lawrence with helping him decide to direct.

The name of Jessica Chastain’s villain is still unknown, but she’s described as a quiet and brutal “otherwordly shapeshifter who manipulates Phoenix for her own agenda.” Rumor has it that the movie will see the cinematic debut of the Skrulls, a race of shapeshifting aliens. Is Chastain playing a Skrull? We’ll see.

For more details and images from Dark Phoenix, click HERE. Stay tuned for more as we have it.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is scheduled to hit theaters on November 2nd, 2018. The 13th installment of the X-Men series stars Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain. Simon Kinberg writes and directs.