X-Men: Dark Phoenix Director Simon Kinberg Reveals MAJOR X-Men Death

**Warning Spoilers for X-Men: Dark Phoenix Below**

X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg revealed that Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique is killed by Sophie Turner’s Dark Phoenix in the upcoming film.

Kinberg spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the decision to kill off Mystique and heavily hint that it happens in the newest trailer.

“Well, the thought process behind that was to primarily show that this is a movie that is unlike other X-Men movies. It’s a movie where shocking things happen, where intense, dramatic things happen. People don’t just fall off buildings and dust themselves off and walk away. There’s a reality to this movie and a consequence to this movie. Even more than that, it was to show that Jean/Dark Phoenix is genuinely a threat to everyone, including the X-Men.”

He elaborated:

“I had a lot of emotions about it. I was obviously sad about it, as Jen’s friend, and also as a fan of Jen as an actress. But I felt it was the strongest, most dramatic thing for the movie, and sometimes you have to make those kinds of hard decisions to service the larger story. And the larger story really is Jean cracking up, losing control because she’s more powerful than anyone else in the world. To dramatize that properly, you have to show real loss, you have to show real pain and show real threat and menace. I didn’t want to do that by her blowing up a building with anonymous people in it. It had to feel really personal for the X-Men, and I wanted it to be something that would fracture the X-Men as well. Mystique is someone who in our universe has been part of the X-Men and has been part of Magneto’s world. Her death impacts literally everybody.”

Kinberg would go on to reveal that Mystique will not be the only X-Men to bite the bullet, “There are certainly other major casualties in this.”

Seeing X-Men die on the big screen isn’t anything new. X-Men: First Class featured a traumatic death scene when Darwin was killed by Sebastian Shaw.

https://youtu.be/IEtv8o29c4Q

In X-Men: Days of Future Past there are a number of deaths including Storm, Bishop, Blink, Magneto, Iceman, Colossus, Warpath, and Sunspot. However, their deaths were erased via changes in the timeline.

In X-Men: The Last Stand, Cyclops is incinerated by the Phoenix. The Phoenix would also kill Charles Xavier, Kid Omega, Arclight, Psylocke, and Juggernaut. Wolverine would end up killing Jean Grey with his claws.

What do you make of Mystique being killed off in X-Men: Dark Phoenix? Do you like Kinberg’s explanation?

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