'Dark Phoenix' Original Ending Featured Smaller Cast, Skrulls

It’s no secret at this point that Fox and Simon Kinberg’s “Dark Phoenix” had a much different ending prior to its extensive and costly reshoots. Revealed on the ReelBlend podcast, and later reported by IndieWire, Scott Summers/Cyclops actor Tye Sheridan recalled details of the scrapped original ending. While Sheridan admits that his memories are foggy, he gives enough information to paint a drastically different vision of the climax to the “X-Men” sequel.

“Originally, it was scripted that Charles [Xavier (James McAvoy)] and Scott go to the U.N. because – man, I'm totally going to mess this up – they go to the U.N. because they're going to try to tell the President that, ‘Hey, we're under attack by aliens and, they’ve now captured Jean Grey [Sophie Turner],’” Sheridan explained.

“...And then Jean comes down in the front of the U.N., and causes...there is this huge battle between the guards at the U.N. and Jean Grey, and all the guards turn out to be Skrulls. And then Jean and Scott are – Scott is fighting Skrulls in the fountain. He gets thrown into the fountain in front of the U.N. And then Jean comes down and basically fights all of the Skrulls off, and then blasts back off into space. [Jean] basically says goodbye to Scott and Charles.”

This obviously differs wildly from what moviegoers saw in theaters, where the big third act fight is set on a train and features a larger cast of mutants. Kinberg was said to have changed the ending to avoid similarities to “Captain America: Civil War” and “Captain Marvel.”

Sheridan’s comments also seem to confirm the appearance of Skrulls in earlier versions of “Dark Phoenix.” The change to the much less popular D’Bari was likely due to rights issues with Marvel Studios, who featured the shape-shifting Skrulls heavily in their recent hit, “Captain Marvel.”