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With Dark Phoenix opening in theaters this weekend, I recently sat down with writer-director Simon Kinberg to talk about the film. During the wide-ranging interview he talked about how they designed Sophie Turner’s look in the film, what was it like writing and filming the big action scene towards the beginning of the film, if it was tough to get Michael Fassbender back in the role, why he wanted to create Genosha, deleted scenes, and what will be on the eventual Blu-ray, how he came up with the ending of the film (it’s spoiler free don’t worry), and a lot more.

As most of you know, Dark Phoenix is most likely the last X-Men film with the current cast and adapts the famous "Dark Phoenix Saga" comics arc, with Sophie Turner filling the role of Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix while Jessica Chastain plays a mysterious and otherworldly character. The film also sees Michael Fassbender return as Magneto alongside Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Red Lotus (Andrew Stehlin), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Selene (Kota Eberhardt). Main players Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) return.

Check out what he had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about followed by the official synopsis.

Simon Kinberg:

• Why he felt ready to direct and why he wasn’t intimidated by the scale of the film.
• What advice would he give himself if he could go back in time to the first day of filming?
• Which character is the easiest for him to write and which one is the hardest?
• What was it like writing and filming the big action scene towards the beginning of the film where the X-Men go into space for a rescue mission?
• How did they come up with the way Sophie Turner was going to look at Dark Phoenix?
• How tough was it to get Michael Fassbender to come back?
• Why he wanted to create Genosha in the film.
• What was the last thing he cut out of the movie and why?
• How many deleted scenes will be on the Blu-ray?
• Did he always know he wanted to end the movie the way it ends?

Here’s the Dark Phoenix official synopsis:

This is the story of one of the X-Men’s most beloved characters, Jean Grey, as she evolves into the iconic DARK PHOENIX. During a life-threatening rescue mission in space, Jean is hit by a cosmic force that transforms her into one of the most powerful mutants of all. Wrestling with this increasingly unstable power as well as her own personal demons, Jean spirals out of control, tearing the X-Men family apart and threatening to destroy the very fabric of our planet. The film is the most intense and emotional X-Men movie ever made. It is the culmination of 20 years of X-Men movies, as the family of mutants that we’ve come to know and love must face their most devastating enemy yet — one of their own.