This past weekend saw “Dark Phoenix” attempt to rise from the ashes of “X-Men: Apocalypse.” Unfortunately, for everyone involved in the film, the newest ‘X-Men’ movie didn’t just fail to live up to expectations, but instead, seemingly put the final nail in the coffin of everyone involved with Fox’s superhero franchise. And now, a day removed from the catastrophic box office weekend, a report comes out that says that the drama we thought we knew about “Dark Phoenix” pales in comparison to the reality, as the film is expected to lose over $100 million.
Call it a post-mortem or a bunch of finger-pointing, but Deadline has released a report today about just what Disney can expect to lose thanks to “Dark Phoenix.” According to sources and analysts, after everything is all said and done (including home release and ancillary revenue), “Dark Phoenix” will likely lose at least $100 million. This is all based on the film earning approximately $325 million worldwide at the box office, and let’s be real, even that very low number is hardly a guarantee. We could be looking at a sub-$300 million cume when everything is all said and done depending on how many people are scared off by the bad buzz.
In our box office report, we attempted to break down what exactly could have led to such a disastrous showing for the ‘X-Men’ franchise. Was it franchise fatigue? A bad film? A troubled production? Terrible marketing? All of the above? Apparently, the report says that’s all true, but there’s much more than that to add to the stew of awfulness that birthed “Dark Phoenix.”
Deadline states that Fox failed to manage the headlines about the film, after reports of extended reshoots, altered endings, and untrue reasons for delays became commonplace for “Dark Phoenix.” All those reports created a bad buzz, when in fact, most of the reports were blown out of proportion.
The fabled reshoots for “Dark Phoenix” seem to have been solely based on audience test screenings, where the major complaint was that the original ending of the film didn’t feature the entire X-Men regrouping for battle, instead focusing on Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Xavier. The test audiences wanted to see the team fight together, and thus, reshoots were called for, with Kinberg changing the location of the third act (a train) and forced the X-Men to combine forces one last time.
And all those reports about the reshoots being expansive? Well, not so much. Apparently, the reshoots for “Dark Phoenix” were actually far less than “X-Men: Apocalypse,” ‘Days of Future Past,’ and ‘First Class.’ But the studio was never able to change the narrative about the reshoots being a result of a troubled production. In fact, it would appear that ‘DoFP’ and ‘Apocalypse’ had far more troubled productions, with director Bryan Singer apparently leaving the set (unexpectedly) and forcing Kinberg to act as director during multiple instances on both films.
The delays were also a sticking point for fans, leading many to believe that there was a lot more drama than we were led to believe. According to Deadline, the truth is the final delay, from February 14 to June 6 was the result of Fox deciding to move ‘Alita’ from December to February. Fox wanted to make sure that James Cameron’s epic had enough room to breathe and instead, moved “Dark Phoenix” to June. Director Simon Kinberg and the rest of the folks behind-the-scenes of the film were unhappy with this because their ‘X-Men’ film was never intended to be a summer blockbuster, but instead a smaller-scale entry.
One seemingly good decision that Fox made during this whole debacle is the studio’s reluctance to make “Dark Phoenix” a two-part film. Kinberg apparently plotted and scripted two parts for the story, but the studio decided to scale it back to just one film, which forced the writer-director to alter his script accordingly. However, in hindsight, the only thing that would have been worse than “Dark Phoenix” bombing like it did this weekend is the news that it could have had a sequel coming next year.
Long story short, mistakes were made, and “Dark Phoenix” just seemed to be the end result of so many issues that it’s a miracle that a competent film was released at all. And while the finished product is far from a great ‘X-Men’ film, it would appear that “Dark Phoenix” really didn’t have much of a shot, at all.
Also, for those that have followed the ‘X-Men’ franchise for the last two decades, it’s interesting to note that not everyone involved has been quiet about this weekend’s failings. In fact, one of the original shepherds of the mutant series, Laura Shuler-Donner, quickly disavowed any connection to the most recent ‘X-Men’ films in a tweet that is now deleted (but nothing is ever truly gone on social media, is it?). This may just be the most embarrassing part of the entire weekend:
Throw the #DarkPhoenix under the bus? pic.twitter.com/4n7nvmWvTK
— Rodrigo Perez ???????????? (@YrOnlyHope) June 10, 2019
Hoping New Mutants is wonderful. Looking forward to seeing it one day.
— Lauren Shuler Donner (@ShuDonner) June 8, 2019