So, yeah, for those of you out there that might not know, first-time director Simon Kindberg’sDark Phoenixstarring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Sophie Turner as Jean Grey hit theaters this past weekend and fell all but flat on its mutant face. Snagging a mere $33M domestically, the new movie now holds the title as the lowest opening weekend ever for the Fox/Marvel mutant franchise. And today we have word that things are only going to be getting worse for the film as it moves along. Finance experts say this phoenix will burn out with an estimated $100M-$120M loss.
This loss comes with the news that the movie ended up costing an estimated $350M+ to produce all said and done. And yes, that figure is said to include all those reshoots that pushed the film back from its original November 2018 release date to its final release last week. But supposedlythose reshoots are not in themselves to be blamedfor the movie’s failure. EvidentlyDark Phoenixhad less reshoots thanX-Men: First Class,X-Men: Days of Future PastandX-Men: Apocalypse. But this has not been confirmed.
It’s said that a good amount of thisDark Phoenixfailure comes off the heels ofX-Men: Apocalypsebeing universally considered (until this past weekend) to be the weakestX-Menmovie ever. But the pain doesn’t stop there for this newest (and final) Fox-producedX-Menmotion picture. Oh, no. The film scored the lowest ever CinemaScore for the franchise, and as we have already reported, the new movie has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of all theX-Menmovies with a current rating of just 23%. Hell, evenX-Men Origins - Wolverinemanaged to pull in a 37% back in 2009, and that movie is God-awful.
TheCritic ConsensusforDark Phoenixover on Rotten Tomatoes reads: “Dark Phoenix ends an era of the X-Men franchise by taking a second stab at adapting a classic comics arc – with deeply disappointing results.” Ouch. I haven’t seen the movie personally, but I lovedX-Men: First Classso I think I’ll eventually make time forX-Men: ApocalypseandX-Men: Dark Phoenixsoon. It can’t be all bad.
X-Men: Dark PhoenixstarsJames McAvoy as Charles Xavier/ Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkhölme / Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy / Beast, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers / Cyclops, and Sophie Turner as Jean Grey / Phoenix. Alexandra Shipp joins as Ororo Munroe / Storm, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler, Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver, and Jessica Chastain as Vuk. Additionally, Kota Eberhardt plays Selene Gallio, Andrew Stehlin plays Ariki, and Scott Shepherd and Hannah Anderson play Jean’s parents John and Elaine. Ato Essandoh, Brian d’Arcy James, and Lamar Johnson costar with Halston Sage, who cameos as Dazzler.
The movie was written and directed by Simon Kinberg based onX-Menby Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Kinberg also produced the film along with Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner. Hans Zimmer provided the score. This update comes to us viaDeadline.
