Simon Kinberg to Direct ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’

Simon Kinberg has been confirmed as the director for X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

The 43-year-old film producer and screenwriter has penned the scripts on four X-Men movies and worked on Deadpool and Wolverine movie Logan and he will now make his directorial debut on the upcoming 20th Century Fox film featuring the Marvel mutants.

Kinberg will also co-produce alongside former director Bryan Singer, Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner.
Sophie Turner is to reprise her role as Jean Grey in the adventure which will focus on the psychic hero’s alter ego Dark Phoenix. She first played the character in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be one of three X-Men related films released in 2018 including Deadpool 2 and teen-orientated The New Mutants.

The cast will include Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp, Tye Sheridan, and Kodi Smit-McPhee who will all reprise their roles from the last X-Men movie. Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain is in talk to join the cast as the main villain, Shi’ar Empress Lilandra Neramani.

The film is believed to take place in the 1990s and will be inspired by The Dark Phoenix Saga, the most popular X-Men story of all time, and is set to be released in November 2018.