The Real Reason The New 'X-Men' Film Has Been Delayed Might Actually Make It Better

The X-Men film franchise has been entertaining and delighting superhero fanatics for close to 20 years, and it doesn't seem like the saga will be ending anytime soon. The latest instalment will see actress Sophie Turner — who you might know as Sansa Stark from GoT — starring aside X-men regulars such as Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Mystique, and Michael Fassbender (Magnento). However, it's all well and good getting super excited about the new film, but how long will the wait be? When is X-Men: Dark Phoenix out in the UK?

As The Indepedent's report from March 2018 shows, the original UK release date for Dark Phoenix was Nov. 2, 2018, but this was pushed back to Valentine's Day of 2019. And sadly, since then, the release date has been changed again. Movie news site CollIider reported in October 2018 that Dark Phoenix was being held for a second time, coming out in June instead. Calling everyone in the UK: mark June 7 on your calendars.

Speaking in an on-camera interview with Collider, the Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg explained that the film was pushed back owing to re-shoots. He went on to explain the detail of those re-shoots:

“Mostly we focused on the third act, both emotionally and in terms of the physical scale and the action of the third act that we adjusted. And then there were certain things in the first two acts of the movie — very few things, but to set up those changes in the third act we had to adjust some things in the first two acts so that that all was fluid and felt consistent.”

Kinberg explained to Collider that the Dark Phoenix team only realised the film wasn't ready after the Feb. 14 announcement had already been made:

“Some of the trailers had ‘Coming Soon’ on them and some of them said ‘February 14th’. It was a date, February 14th, that we initially liked for the movie but when we realized that we weren’t gonna have the visual effects ready to release it globally the way we wanted to," he said.

There's a bigger commercial opportunity to be gained by having a summer date, too, says Kinberg, as it means "more screens, more IMAX screens." The director also stated that the June release date will allow the film to have greater global impact. He said that summer gives it "a better chance to play in China where these movies have a massive following." He continued: "What we found when we released the trailer was that 44, 45 million views of the trailer were in China alone… Specific for us, it is an opportunity to be a bigger movie day-and-date globally."

Kinberg confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter back in May 27, 2016, that Dark Phoenix would be the first in a new line of films that would focus on the lives of the younger characters in the original X-Men series. That probably means that you'll get to see a bit more of the Turner, Lawrence, Fassbender combo, so bring it on.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Dark Phoenix will be "set in 1992, about 10 years after the events of last year’s X-Men: Apocalypse," and it'll see Turner and co. in new, unexpected roles as national heroes. What unfolds is bound to be enough action and special effects to last you a lifetime, but, until then, you still have a few months to catch up on the several X-Men films in the back catalogue.