'X-Men: Dark Phoenix' Rumor: Jessica Chastain to Play Classic Villain, But With Twist That Affects 'The New Mutants,' Entire X-Men Universe?
Fox's well-kept secret that is Jessica Chastain's role in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" may have been uncovered.
According to Jeff Sneider of The Tracking Board, the actress is set to bring to life a classic "X-Men" villain, albeit with a major twist.
"I heard a rumor this week. What if—and forget the pronouns here—what if Jessica Chastain was playing Mister Sinister? That's the rumor," he said during an episode of "Popcorn Talk."
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"I don't know what that means. I don't know who Mister Sinister really is, but that's a possibility. It's a possibility," he went on to say.
While there is no way to confirm this yet, The Mary Sue believes that based on what has been said and revealed so far, it makes sense that Chastain is playing a version of Mister Sinister in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix."
The publication points to how the actress reiterates being drawn to the film because of the "many powerful female roles" in the story, especially in light of the controversy surrounding Bryan Singer who was, at one point, tapped to direct the movie.
That and the fact that a surprising twist to a well-known villain in the "X-Men" lore would no doubt be a big reason to keep details on the "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" role on a lid.
Either way, it looks like Mister Sinister was always planned to be introduced in the "X-Men" universe in the big screen anyway, just not in the way it was initially dreamed up.
The Tracking Board claims that Josh Boone, the co-writer for "New Mutants," hoped to tease the villain's arrival in a post-credits scene in the said film and more importantly, it was Jon Hamm who was supposed to play the character.
Both "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "New Mutants" have been delayed. This is the second time for the latter, which has been plagued with major production issues that called for the postponement in the first place.
A lot of changes and tweaks are being done on the "New Mutants" script at the moment, which led to the Mister Sinister setup with Hamm to be totally scrapped.
Boone and his co-writer Knate Lee hoped to make "New Mutants" a full-blown horror film, complete with blood and jump scares, an idea that Fox was not at all on board with until seeing for themselves the massive success of the "It" movie.
Because of this, the trailer for "New Mutants" was cut to look like a horror film despite being put together as a young adult movie, and the reception was so glowing to the point that Fox ultimately changed its mind and is now looking to reshoot it into a scary movie instead of the PG-13 film that they talked the rest of the production crew into doing.
Before all that, Boone already made it a point to film the build-up to Hamm's Mister Sinister entrance, but all this is for naught now. The post-credits scene will instead feature Antonio Banderas as an unspecified villain that is most definitely not Mister Sinister.
The baddie is still joining the fray, apparently, and it will likely be Chastain who gets to make it happen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix," which has been pushed to Feb. 14, 2019.
