Simon Kinberg is nervous. The 44-yearold writer-producer responsible for shepherding X-Men franchise is about to preview 40 minutes of the next installment in the mutant saga, Dark Phoenix, due in theaters Nov. 2. His adaptation of the most famous arc in the X-Men catalog—telepathic Jean Grey's battle with the demons in her own mind—is not only his directorial debut but also his chance at redemption. Kinberg previously attempted to tell the Dark Phoenix tale with his screenplay for 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, but studio pressure squeezed her story into a reductive subplot. Last Stand was a hit, but hardcore X-Men fans have never gotten over it. So this do-over is both overdue and overburdened with the pressure to get it right. Kinberg felt in his gut that this was the story that he needed to tell, once Bryan Singer, who directed the previous two sequels, stepped aside. "[The film] was so clear in my head, emotionally and visually, that it would have killed me to hand this to somebody else to direct," Kinberg says. Set in 1992, about 10 years after the events of last year's X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix opens with the X-Men, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters), in a new, unexpected role: national heroes. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) even lands on the cover of Time magazine. But his growing ego puts the team at risk. "Pride is starting to get the better of him, and he is pushing the X-Men to more extreme missions," Kinberg says. After they're dispatched to space for a rescue mission, a solar flare hits the X-Jet and the surge of energy ignites a malevolent, power-hungry new force within Jean (Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner) - the Phoenix.

Based partially on writer Chris Claremont's comic, Phoenix will feature some of the series' biggest set pieces to date, but the film is also the most sinister, and somber, chapter in the X-Men saga and includes a massive twist halfway through that will irrevocably change the course of the franchise. "This is probably the most emotional X-Men we've done and the most pathos-driven," McAvoy says. "There's a lot of sacrifice and a lot of suffering." The movie becomes a fight for Jean's soul as Phoenix threatens to overtake her mind and divide the X-Men, particularly Jean and her mentor, Charles. "It's about the butterfly effect of this thing happening," says Turner, who studied schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders to prepare. "What happens when the person you love the most falls into darkness?" "[The movie's] structure and identity really is about a family called into conflict," adds producer Hutch Parker. "When your daughter—or sister or girlfriend—is in crisis, do you try and save her, or is there a point where you turn against her?"

The one mutant who never wavers from Team Jean is Scott (Tye Sheridan), a.k.a. Cyclops. "That relationship, his being willing to kill or die for her, is a huge part of the emotional core of the movie," Kinberg says. “It also makes Scott start to have to become a leader." A confused Jean turns to Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), the rogue mutant who parted ways with the X-Men at the end of Apocalypse and now lives on an island named Genosha, a destination comic-book fans will recognize. "He's set up this place for mutants that don't have a home to go to," Fassbender explains. "They have to work as a community, but it's a safe place for them and they'll be accepted." While Jean is both the hero and villain, Dark Phoenix also introduces an otherworldly (and for now, top secret) shape-shifter (Jessica Chastain), who attempts to manipulate Phoenix for her own agenda. Chastain says it was Kinberg's female-driven script that drove her to sign on. "I've always wanted to do a big comic-book film, but I had some issues with the female characters I was being offered," she says. "This definitely passes the Bechdel test, and I don't know how many comic-book films can say that."

Kinberg's personal superpower might be his ability to persuade Lawrence to return. The Oscar winner had expressed lukewarm enthusiasm about playing Mystique again after her X-Men deal expired following Apocalypse. (It turns out having your whole body painted blue every day isn't that fun!) But she was also one of Kinberg's biggest champions when it came to him finally directing. "I kind of f---ed myself," Lawrence says. "Because when I was trying to talk Simon into directing, he said something like, 'If I direct it, you have to do it,' and I was like, 'Of course! Duh!' Then they offered me the movie, and I was like, 'Goddammit!' " She laughs. "It was the fan base, though, too—the other reason was for the fans." With Phoenix, Kinberg "really wanted to acknowledge the strength of the women in the comic and in the actresses that we have," he says. "It's the story about the most powerful person in the world—who happens to be a young woman."

That shift coincided with a summer production in Montreal that all involved described as...calm, an adjective not usually applicable to X-Men shoots. Lawrence says: "It was unrecognizable. Everything was on time. Everything was organized. These movies have always been fun amidst chaos, and now they were fun with no chaos." It helped that Kinberg, who's now written four X-Men movies, delivered a script that aims to bring the series back to its roots. "I think we took our eye off what has always been the bedrock of the franchise, which is these characters," he says. "It became about global destruction and visual effects over emotion and character." That renewed focus had a big impact on his cast. "He knows these characters so deeply," Lawrence says. "I suddenly felt more connected to my character than I ever have been before." But no one, it's fair to say, worked harder than Turner. "The movie does not work if she's not great," Kinberg says. "Sophie really lived and breathed the movie in a way that was extraordinary." The 21-year-old actress loved the Dark Phoenix narrative as a kid in England, but Jean Grey proved to be not only the largest role of her career but the most difficult. "I have to go from broken-down Jean to this confident, arrogant, know-it-all character within milliseconds," she says. The pressure kept Turner from partaking in the Montreal nightlife. “I think I had two nights of proper partying, and on a fivemonth shoot that's not very much," she says with a laugh. "You only get one shot at something like this. I was like, 'I cannot mess this up with a hangover.'"

As for whether this film can achieve redemption for the sins of Last Stand, Kinberg doesn't exactly see that as the goal. Suggest to him that Dark Phoenix may be his attempt to do what he wrote about in Future Past—change the errors of the past—and he redirects the question. "It's not so much about righting the wrongs of Last Stand," he says. "For me, it was really more about a kid whose favorite comic was Dark Phoenix and being like, 'I just want to see that in theaters.' " If he can make fans feel that way again, all will be forgiven.