Even though Stan Lee and Jack Kirby can be credited for creating the X-Men, we also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Chris Claremont, who penned the comics for decades and established a great deal of the modern mythology. Really, one need look no further than Days of Future Past to see how his influence has been felt on the film franchise in recent years.
Continuing that tradition will be the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which we expect to be generously inspired by the Claremont-scripted Dark Phoenix Saga. Of course, it only makes sense that this topic be brought up whenever he does interviews, with his recent discussion with Screen Crush being no exception.
Make no mistake, what’s about to be said could be regarded as hyperbole similar to claims that Dark Phoenix will “revolutionize” the superhero genre, but they’re strong words, regardless. When being asked about how the last adaptation of storyline, 2003’s The Last Stand, was a swing and a miss, Claremont gave his vote of confidence on the next offering with the following:
“It’s isn’t like they didn’t make more than one version of Casino Royale.”
And after Screen Crush pointed out the first attempt (unless you count the prime time special from the 1950’s) didn’t go so well, the fan favorite scribe had this to add:
“Well, I think that’s a perfectly accurate paradigm; the second Dark Phoenix will have as powerful an impact on the comic-book film world as the second Casino Royale had on the James Bond film world. I figure you could do a whole lot worse than that.”
To provide a little context, 1967’s Casino Royale was a much different beast from the 2006 flick starring Daniel Craig. In short, it was less an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s seminal novel and more so a comedic precursor to Austin Powers. Having brought you up to speed, you can probably now understand why Claremont is drawing that parallel.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix arrives in theaters on November 2nd.