Is Miss Sinister coming to the big screen in X-Men: Dark Phoenix? If a new rumor is to be believed, that's exactly who Jessica Chastain is playing in the follow-up to X-Men: Apocalypse. Chastain is one of the most in-demand and talented actresses working in the business today and managed to be a major get for this movie as the main villain. But her exact role has been a bit mysterious up to this point. Assuming this new rumor has any truth to it, that secrecy would actually make a great deal of sense.

Again, we need to caution that this is just a rumor for the time being, but with that said, it's being reported that the gender-swapped version of Mister Sinister, one of the most beloved X-Men villains ever, is going to be at the center of Dark Phoenix. This rumor was revealed on the latest episode of Meet the Movie Press and, should this prove to be true, it's quite the fascinating development. Here's what they had to say about it.

"I heard a rumor this week. And, what if, and forget the pronouns here, what if Jessica Chastain was playing Mister Sinister? That's the rumor."

Mister Sinister is a character fans have wanted to see on the big screen for a very long time. Gender-swapping has become an increasingly popular thing to do in Hollywood these days, and it sounds like that's (possibly) exactly what X-Men: Dark Phoenix is going to do with Jessica Chastain playing the character. That said, this isn't totally unheard of. Mister Sinister can switch minds and bodies in the world of Marvel Comics and there is actually a Miss Sinister in the books. While not nearly as big as Mister Sinister, there is a precedent for such a thing.

Initially, Jessica Chastain was said to be playing the Shi'ar Empress Lilandra, a.k.a. Lilandra Neramani. However, that's not going to be the case. So now we're left with this. Beyond that, we know that the movie will adapt the Dark Phoenix storyline, at least loosely, from the comics. This was previously attempted, quite poorly, in X-Men: The Last Stand. Director Simon Kinberg, who has been a longtime writer and producer of the franchise but makes his directorial debut with X-Men 7, is taking another stab at it. Hopefully, he can managed to do the material a bit more justice.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix was supposed to be hitting theaters on November 2 of this year. However, Fox recently delayed the movie until February 14, 2019, in order to allow Simon Kinberg to rework the third act of the movie and do some reshoots. So maybe they're changing Jessica Chastain's role a bit? It's tough to say, but this is at the very least a rather intriguing rumor. One that may irritate some fans who have been waiting to see a more traditional version of Mister Sinister, but interesting nevertheless. You can check out the latest episode of Meet the Movie Press, courtesy of the Popcorn Talk YouTube channel, for yourself below.