Box office expectations for the final X-Men film (before the Disney reboot) were just $50M. Extremely low by today’s standards. Dark Phoenix subverted expectations, pulling in a paltry $33M opening weekend. The only real competition came from animat…
Box office expectations for the final X-Men film (before the Disney reboot) were just $50M. Extremely low by today’s standards. Dark Phoenix subverted expectations, pulling in a paltry $33M opening weekend. The only real competition came from animated family film The Secret Life of Pets 2, which blew Dark Phoenix away. This is by far the lowest opening for any X-Men film in its 19-year history.
Long-time X-Men writer and producer Simon Kinberg makes his directorial debut for the franchise in Dark Phoenix. The film sees charisma vacuum Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey turn into the God-like Phoenix. The story line was previously covered in the worst X-Men film of all-times, X3: The Last Stand. The film opened in all international markets except two (Japan and Indonesia) with an overseas total of $107M. China led the way with $45M. China takes a larger percentage of box office revenues from Western films than any other country.
Reception from audiences and critics is not kind to Dark Phoenix. It received a B- CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences. An extremely low mark from that metric. Rotten Tomatoes critic aggregate score is an equally abysmal 23%. While the Rotten Tomatoes audience score sits at 64%. The general consensus among critics and fans alike is Dark Phoenix is a very disappointing film. Not the best way to end the venerated franchise that ushered in the comic movie craze all the way back in 2000.
The $33M opening is the lowest in the 19-year franchise history without adjusting for inflation. The previous franchise low was 2013’s The Wolverine at $53M. Dark Phoenix’s opening dropped 51% from the most recent film. 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse opened to $65M. Deadline reports the films budget (including production costs, reshoots, and global marketing) is $350M. The report also estimates Dark Phoenix to lose between $100M to $120M after its final box office tally. Early estimates of the final worldwide take are between $300M and $325M. One thing to keep in..
