Written By: Mathew ‘JJ’ Simoes

Yesterday, Fox announced that X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants’ release dates had been delayed to February 2019 and August 2019 respectively. Now, a new report has been released that sheds some light on why the film’s were delayed.

According to Comicbook.com, after testing Dark Phoenix, 20th Century Fox has elected to bring the film back into production ahead of its release. The Simon Kinberg-directed film is in need of multiple weeks worth of reshoots to change significant story points in the film.

Unfortunately, the studio and crew will face a massive roadblock for the reshoots as its titular Dark Phoenix actress Sophie Turner will be heavily tied up with obligations to Game of Thrones‘ final season through September.

New Mutants, is also in the process of even more significant reshoots after having its release date delayed nearly an entire year once again. The film will add a several new characters to round out the movie, as well as making it even scarier, apparently overhauling the majority of the film. The original cut of the film was directed by Josh Boone. Such a hold up has prompted the film to push its release date back, once again, to August 2, 2019. It was originally scheduled for April 13, 2018 and then pushed back to February 2019.

The giant looming cloud over this entire situation however is that, by the time either of these release dates come to pass, Disney and the movie division of 20th Century Fox will likely have merged into a single company — and with an inevitable Marvel Studios-produced X-Men reboot being all but officially confirmed, both of these movies might feel at odds with Marvel’s shared universe. As of now, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has not spoken on how the X-Men would be impacted by the acquisition. It’s looking increasingly likely that these will be the last two films set in Fox’s X-Men Cinematic Universe, barring the Deadpool sub-franchise continuing as its own thing.

Considering this report is unconfirmed at this time, take this information with a grain a salt. However, given Fox’s track record with reshoots and superhero films, remain cautious about the future of Fox’s X-verse…

X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be released in theatres on February 14, 2019 while New Mutants will debut on August 2, 2019.