X-Men: Dark Phoenix (or simply Dark Phoenix) hasn’t really had the best road so far. It was reported that FOX wasn’t happy with director Simon Kinberg’s initial cut of the film, and that heavy re-shoots were taking place. The film was initially scheduled to be released at the end of this year, but was recently pushed back all the way to 2019. And we now may know why.

Normally, Reddit isn’t the best place to find information on these types of things, but the person leaking stuff in this instance has been verified by the moderators on a popular Marvel sub-reddit. He began by saying (poor grammar left in tact):

I know this is “Marvel Studios” leaks but screw it. I have been a lurker on this site for a while and I finally made an account because of the inncaurate info Manabyte is spreading about Dark Phoenix. I went to the screening in Feb. I live in CA and go to a lot of test screenings for fun. I have proof ready to show for the mods. I legit got tired of him saying false shit and people buying into it. His sources are going him twisted info. The x-men don’t go into space in the third act and the word “skrull” was not said once at all in the film.

For those of you unaware, Manabyte is a former IGN reporter named Jeremy Conrad who recently started his own site. The tweet in question from above could be this one:

IF Dark Phoenix is released in theaters next February, when Captain Marvel releases three weeks later there will be TWO Marvel-based superhero movies in theaters with the same exact villains at the same time. https://t.co/hdtPqysmH5 — Jeremy Conrad (@ManaByte) March 27, 2018

Users on Reddit then asked the leaker questions, and there are a lot of major spoilers ahead. It appears he’s talking about an initial cut of the film, so we don’t know if it’s the cut we will see in theaters or not.

I want to make sure that this is clear – I am talking about the cut of the movie I saw. Things could still get tweaked here and there. But I do believe some things won’t change. What can’t change is the movie being really underwhelming. Really lower your expectations because this one is not good. Mystique dies. They repeat moments from X3 I kid you not. -They repeat the moment between jean and Cyclops “take off the glasses and kiss me I can control your eyes” -We see Charles pick up jean as a child again -jean almost kills Charles again by levitating him and dissolving him Magneto does become an opposing force again and faces off with Charles’ team. It’s funny because before their fight begins and Charles is trying to talk him out of it magneto goes like “every time we do this it’s the same thing over again”- something along those lines.

He then gave a brief rundown of the film, saying:

-x-men are like Avengers status at the beginning of the film (which feels really unearned) -astronauts at risk of dying in space(literally the atmosphere not space) due to some cosmic waves -x-men save them but jean gets hit by waves -they return and she starts freaking out about her powers -the movie begins with young jean getting in a car crash with her two parents. At this point after the rescue we find out that her powers were responsible and she feels guilty for killing her mother. We find out that her dad is still alive though so she escapes the mansion all emotional to go find him. -when jean got hit by the cosmic rays she sent the spaceship flying into space and somehow it fucking lands on an alien planet. The aliens look st the wreckage and go “fuck it this means war. Let’s go get the phoenix force” that’s literally their whole motivation. -jean finds her dad and she gets pissed that Charles lied to her about her parents being dead. But Charles lied because her dad didn’t want her anymore. When she finally realizes all of this she almost kills her dad but the x men come to save her. She is really edgy at this point. -she kills mystique by accident -beast gets all mad because he loved her. -beast goes to find magneto for help to defeat jean -charles takes the rest of the team to get to jean before the aliens and beast/magneto can -movie is so boring I’m sorry of this isn’t the best description but the movie ends with a cgi battle and its not very exciting because the aliens look boring and have generic levitation powers (they do shape shift into humans but they LOOK NOTHING LIKE SKRULLS AND THE WORD SKRULL IS NEVER SAID) -there is an alien invasion and jean flies into space and gives up all her powers to destroy the fleet. The end

He was then asked if there was a Quicksilver scene, to which he said:

Yes it’s when they are saving the astronauts. It’s not set to music though When I said not set to music I meant like quicksilver himself isn’t listening to music like in the previous 2

The suits from X-Men: Apocalypse are completely gone as well (though set photos revealed the new suits a while back):

Lmao those costumes are completely gone. The ones from the set photos. Simple black with the yellow forming an X on the upper half. These costumes only get worn twice out of the entire movie as well. Third act is them in civilian clothing The name of Jessica Chastain’s character? I really couldn’t tell you because they don’t ever say it. She’s a generic alien. The cut I saw didn’t establish the name of the species or characters. Yes they are all grey. But it could have been due to the lack of cgi? The alien effects were not even close to being finished The ending? Jean goes into space and finally gives in to phoenix force and it was so cheesy “I’m not jean I’m Phoenix ” she’s talking to Scott through her mind powers as she’s doing it. She gives in and explodes and she wipes out all the fleet. The movie ends with the possibility of her still being out there

The leaker does make it clear again that this was just a rough cut:

The cut I saw was really long and not finished obvi. It’s going to be shorter I feel because it was like way over 2 hours. Dazzler is in the movie making lights during a party scene (they are celebrating the team saving the day in the beginning). Genosha is like government sanciotned land to mutants. That’s what the dialogue makes it out to be. Magneto leads the group of mutants who live peacefully there. It’s really dramatic( which is fine) but a lot of the drama falls flat because of the script tbh. She only becomes the phoenix at the end and I kid you not she wears the same reddish coat for most of the movie. When she flies into space she just goes on fire with the same civilian coat. Like fox is so scared about costumes Idk why. Toad is not in it, psyloke is not in it.

If this is the case, which it appears to be, it’s no surprise that FOX delayed the film. It’s interesting, though, because Kinberg said that this movie would correct the mistakes that X-Men: Apocalypse made. That doesn’t appear to be the case, and if the Disney/FOX deal goes through, you can definitely expect the X-Men to get a major reboot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

What do you think of this? Are you surprised the initial cut of Dark Phoenix wasn’t very good? Be sure to tell us your thoughts in the comments below!