Marvel movie fans want to know when we are finally going to see the first X-Men: Dark Phoenix trailer - especially since they've been waiting for this movie ever since last year, when it was originally supposed to be released. So far, 20th Century Fox has been rather coy about the plan for a Dark Phoenix trailer rollout, but recent rumors have pointed to the time being close.

The X-Men: Dark Phoenix trailer was recently shown at a Fox Marketing Presentation in Russia, while a Chinese social media post teased that X-Men movie fans would be getting a big reveal in three days' time. It's the timing laid out by that latter event that has led to one theory:

Fox will debut the first X-Men: Dark Phoenix trailer during Thursday Night Football this week.

Here's the breakdown of why this theory is taking root:

The Chinese social media announcement announced a big X-Men movie event going down three days after September 24th, which would be (in US scheduling) Thursday September 27th. Thurdsday September 27th happens to also be the date of Thursday Night Football premiering Fox Network - a deal that saw Fox pay out $3 billion to host NFL TNF on its network, swiping it away from NBC and CBS, which had split the games over the past two seasons. Clearly, Fox has a lot of incentive to hype the premiere of TNF, and has been pushing an aggressive marketing and promotion campaign to let sports fans know that the changing of the guard has occurred. Bolstering the premiere with a major movie trailer premiere would make a whole lot of sense.

The X-Men movies are definitely popular and mainstream enough to fit the bill for a major NFL game movie trailer attraction; it would also be a way to lure in an audience (geeks) that wouldn't normally seek out Thursday Night Football TV viewings, and help inflate those premiere numbers. With the trailer having already been shown, it's clear that some promotional footage does already exist, and could be released to the public at any day and time.

So what's the likelihood that we'll see the X-Men: Dark Phoenix trailer during Thursday Night Football? Some skeptics would point out the fact that such a major trailer release would get advanced teasers - and that's a fair assessment. However, while nothing has been announced yet, it's now Tuesday afternoon (at the time of writing this), which is still viable time for there to be the usual TV spots and trailer teaser releases on Wednesday, before the full trailer comes on Thursday.

Do you think we'll see the X-Men: Dark Phoenix trailer premiere during Thursday Night Football? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!