We were pleased to see this morning that the web was buzzing with the news that “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is to become Fox’s tenth X-MEN movie. Among the 76 episodes that we produced for X-Men:TAS, this was one of only three stories we were asked to directly adapt for the screen (along with “Days of Future Past” and “The Phoenix Saga”). There is always a challenge when adapting an admired or beloved story: fans have expectations. For our 88-minute animated version, we greatly streamlined — paring away interweaving stories within the run of books (#129-137) — concentrating on Jean and the X-Men’s effort to save her. I’m curious how the feature folks will tell the story in a 2-1/2 hour movie. It’s funny to look back and realize that on kids TV we couldn’t even call the villains “The Hellfire Club” as the comics did (network censors), and we surely couldn’t have Jean/Phoenix devouring inhabited planets. But we were allowed great spectacle, and, more important, great emotions among the X-Men team as serious sacrifices were contemplated. Here’s hoping the new “Dark Phoenix” takes the story even further.
