In March 2019, Captain Marvel will hit theaters starring a female Marvel hero who has fiery cosmic powers and fights shapeshifting aliens in a '90s period piece. Just a few months later, Dark Phoenix will hit theaters starring another female Marvel hero who has fiery cosmic powers and fights (at least one) shapeshifting alien in another '90s period piece.
That's not all there is to either of those movies, but they share an unusually large amount of common ground for two Marvel movies that premiere fairly close to one another. While Captain Marvel is set for release on March 8, 2019, the much-delayed Dark Phoenix is currently scheduled for release on June 7, 2019.
Right now, we don't know a lot about Captain Marvel's plot, but we know that Brie Larson's Carol Danvers will duke it out with the Skrulls, a race of shapeshifting aliens, in the early '90s. From the movie's first trailer, it also seems like the film will spend plenty of time exploring the extraterrestrial origins of her powers as she teams up with a young version of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury.
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On a similar note, Dark Phoenix will follow Sophie Turner's Jean Grey as she struggles to control the untamed cosmic power of the Phoenix. From the film's spaced-out poster and synopsis, it's clear that Jean's Phoenix powers will be at least partially extraterrestrial in origin. Jean and the rest of the X-Men will also have to deal with Jessica Chastain's unnamed alien shapeshifter, who will try to use Jean's newfound abilities for her own nefarious ends. This movie will take place in 1992, roughly 10 years after Jean's Phoenix powers first emerged in X-Men: Apocalypse.
While those two plots are hardly identical, the similarities between the films could be especially pronounced since the movies are being released so close together. Other superhero movies have been criticized for sharing far more general plot points, and the two films' specific early '90s settings, cosmic overtones and similar villains could encourage comparisons between the two. Trailers for both films premiered over the past month, each building up to shots of their respective leads consumed by crackling cosmic energy.
While Captain Marvel has the Marvel Studios pedigree of critical and commercial success, Dark Phoenix is coming in on shakier ground. The last X-Men team movie, 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse, was a mixed success. To make matters worse, Dark Phoenix has also had highly-publicized reshoots and multiple release date changes. Since it's scheduled to be released 91 days after Captain Marvel premieres, it could be easy for critics and audiences to write off Dark Phoenix as a Captain Marvel copycat.
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When audiences sit down to watch these movies, they'll see Marvel's logo flash at the beginning of both. While anyone reading this article might understand the difference between a 21st Century Fox-produced X-Men movie and a Disney-produced Marvel Studios film like Captain Marvel, a lot of the people who will see these movies might not be in the know.
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The X-Men will finally be heading into Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the near future as a result of Disney's impending acquisition of most of Fox's properties. Even for people who casually keep up with comic book or movie news, that's fairly common knowledge at this point. However, that deal won't be officially done until 2019. Until that deal is totally completed, Marvel Studios and Fox are still developing their respective universes.
If casual superhero fans don't realize that Marvel and Disney still aren't actively working together, they could go into both movies looking to make connections that aren't really there. That could leave a lot of superhero fans walking out of theaters feeling betrayed by a promise that neither Disney nor Fox ever actually made.
As if things weren't already confusing enough, Captain Marvel and Dark Phoenix could also end up sharing the same alien villains, the Skrulls. While we know that the green-skinned shapeshifters will be the villains of Captain Marvel, several rumors have suggested that Skrulls could play a role in Dark Phoenix too. Like Quicksilver or the Watchers, Marvel Studios and Fox essentially share the rights to the Skrulls. Fox still holds the Fantastic Four's cinematic rights, which include several specific Skrulls, so there's no reason why Fox couldn’t drop the Skrulls into an X-Men movie. If Dark Phoenix's mysterious alien shapeshifters end up being Skrulls, the relationship between these two movies will only get more muddled in the eyes of anyone who isn't fairly knowledgeable about Marvel's business dealings.
Even though Captain Marvel and Dark Phoenix share potentially identical villains, vaguely cosmic trappings and an oddly specific early '90s setting, the two movies are diametrically opposed in their approaches. Captain Marvel is about a new hero rising up, while Dark Phoenix is about a hero falling down. That distinction could be the key that lets these films stand on their own.
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Even though her movie isn't out yet, Captain Marvel already represents hope in the MCU. When Nick Fury realized the world was ending in the final moments of Avengers: Infinity War, he messaged Captain Marvel on his space pager. That moment set her up as the Avengers' best hope of defeating Thanos and restoring the universe to its natural order. Unless something truly surprising happens, she'll almost certainly play a major role in shaping the MCU's future after Thanos is defeated.
As that movie's first poster states, Captain Marvel is a hero who goes "Higher, Further, Faster." While that phrase inspires hope, the film's first trailer opened with Carol crashing into a Blockbuster Video store. With a blend of hope, action and humor, Captain Marvel should fit right in with the MCU's zippy, well-established tone.
On the other hand, Dark Phoenix will chronicle the fall of Jean Grey. As its title suggests, the movie will be a loose adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's Dark Phoenix Saga, but it won't be the first time an adaption of that story made it onto the big screen. In 2006, X-Men: The Last Stand offered a largely unfaithful take on the story that divided fans and arguably broke the X-Men's cinematic timeline.
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Make no mistake, Dark Phoenix and Captain Marvel are different movies that tell different stories, but they still share a weirdly large number of similarities. Jean Grey and Captain Marvel are two of the most famous and powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe, and they each deserve a moment in the sun. Hopefully, these two movies will do enough to distinguish themselves in the eyes of an increasingly discerning superhero movie audience.