Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain Say 'Dark Phoenix' Was Being Rewritten on Set

Dark Phoenix officially releases this Friday, and so far, the reviews have not exactly been positive. As information about the film’s quality emerges, so too does behind-the-scenes information about the film’s troubled production, which required extensive reshoots--and during which, according to lead actors Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain, the script was being frequently rewritten on-set.

According to ScreenRant, director and screenwriter Simon Kinberg adapted much of the material from the classic Dark Phoenix Saga storyline, but was forced to cut a number of elements, including the appearances of Lilandra and the Hellfire Club, as they would have made the film too long. However, this meant that, according to Turner, “Simon and I would sit down for two hours every day and just comb through each page of the script," with “rewriting being done all the time.”

Chastain added that, “You could have a conversation and something comes from that and then the next morning, Simon would show up to work and say, 'Hey, I wrote some pages that I think could be interesting for this direction we’re going.'"

Spontaneous rewrites often signal a temperamental and unprepared production process, which, in turn, could have lowered the quality of the film--especially given the problems wrought by production delays in X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Days of Future Past. On the other hand, though, such a close collaboration between a director and an actor could mean that the storylines are more well-developed than they otherwise might have been.

The only way to know for sure, we suppose, will be to see how Dark Phoenix plays out when it hits theaters this Friday.