A new X-Men: Dark Phoenix teaser poster excludes “X-Men” from the title. Fox may still be busy monitoring Deadpool 2’s success after it debuted last week, but the studio is already starting to slowly roll out marketing materials for their next Marvel film. The directorial debut for long-time X-Men film producer Simon Kinberg, the movie will put Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey under the spotlight as she becomes the Dark Phoenix, as hinted in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Plot details for the film are still being kept tightly under wraps, but it is said to be more grounded than past films. Dark Phoenix reportedly has gone through reshoots that would’ve cost an additional $10 million and will mainly focus on reworking the movie’s final act. This explains its release date being delayed three months from its initial scheduled debut set in November 2018 to February 2019.

Coming from Twitter user Keda is a brand new teaser poster for Dark Phoenix released at the ongoing Las Vegas Licensing Expo. While there’s not much to discuss about the one-sheet considering it’s simply the title of the film with the iconic X logo at the end, it’s interesting that it doesn’t include the “X-Men” branding. Check it out below:

The film is still officially titled X-Men: Dark Phoenix but if this changes to simply Dark Phoenix, it’s curious how the movie will perform at the box office without its usual “X-Men” tag in the title. As a comparison, Logan deviated from the usual title format of previous Wolverine solo movies, but still pocketed more than $600 million. However, one could argue that Hugh Jackman being the face of that film helped its cause. Excluding “X-Men” in the title doesn’t make sense considering that the upcoming Marvel flick is part of Fox’s main franchise. Logan and Deadpool can get away without it because they’re offshoots.

Regardless if this means that Fox will officially promote their next Marvel film as X-Men: Dark Phoenix or just Dark Phoenix, the poster is pretty underwhelming. For a film that will tackle a quintessential comic book narrative (one that they’ve botched on their first take already), the marketing for the movie isn’t doing anything to hype people up for this new big screen adaptation. However, this is a very early teaser poster released at an industry event, so it’s not the same as a typical movie one-sheet.

Perhaps the idea that this might just be the last X-Men movie under the studio before the rights go to Marvel Studios via the impending Disney sale has been dampening people’s spirits about X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Chances are that this continuity will be scrapped and a rebooted franchise will join the MCU. Still, if that’s the case, Fox should go all out for this film given that it may be their last time they’ll have creative control over these beloved characters.

 MORE: X-Men: Dark Phoenix: Every Update You Need To Know

Source: Keda/Twitter

  • Deadpool 2 Release Date: 2018-05-18 X-Men: Dark Phoenix Release Date: 2019-06-07 New Mutants Release Date: 2020-08-28