As much as we adore Jessica Chastain for the powerful dramas and independent fare she does, she’s not above signing up for something like “Huntsman: Winter’s War.” Those movies are fun to make, probably pay well, and enable the actress to back to making the kinds of movies we like to see her in. So while so may be dismayed that Chastain is jumping into a comic book movie, it’s not a total shock.
THR reports that the actress is in negotiations to star in “X-Men: Dark Phoenix.” The film will find Sophie Turner reprising her role as Jean Grey from “X-Men: Apocalypse,” in a storyline that is more or less what was covered in “X-Men: The Last Stand,” but the goal here is to make a better movie, with greater fidelity to the source material. It if it all comes together, Chastain would be playing the villain Lilandra, the empress of alien race Shi’ar.
With the contracts up for James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence, this is a canny move by Fox get another big star into their X-Men movies. The Simon Kinberg directed film will open on November 2, 2018.
Update 8/1: Chastain confirms the report over her Instagram account. “@jamesmcavoyrealdeal you ready for me up in Montreal? Im gonna make you cry so hard ? #xmen @simondavidkinberg,” she writes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXRJm00B9FD/