Dark Phoenix box office tanks franchise

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

It will be a year in June since the Dark Phoenix box office all but guaranteed the franchise would come to a premature end. The film was ripped apart by critics and fans and the movie stalled at the box office. With a reported budget of $200 million, DARK PHOENIX only grossed $252 million globally, making it a franchise-worst performance for the X-MEN films. DARK PHOENIX is likely taking its final hit as it was announced that in the same year that gave us the movie CATS, DARK PHOENIX earns the distinction of biggest box office bomb of 2019.

According to a report via "Deadline" that looked at the box office losers last year, DARK PHOENIX topped that list with reported losses of $133 million. The film only managed to gross $65 million domestically and $186 million from overseas markets which weren't enough to ease the pain of a ballooning budget and marketing costs. DARK PHOENIX shifted release dates twice, moving from November 2018 to February 2019 and then shifting to June of 2019 soon after a trailer was released that revealed the February date. DARK PHOENIX really fell victim to the Disney/Fox merger since 20th Century Fox never intended DARK PHOENIX to be a summer release and initially planned to market the film for a more subdued November, or even February opening. When the merger was complete, all those involved in the marketing strategy for DARK PHOENIX were off the project and Disney rolled the dice on a summer release, hoping the younger out of school crowd would respond. As we now know, the response was lukewarm and a fairly quick exit from movie screens was the film's fate.

DARK PHOENIX was also plagued with behind the scenes issues. Directed by Simon Kinberg, who has been with the X-MEN franchise for most of its run as a writer, the film was intended to be two movies to give the story the narrative justice it deserved. The "Dark Phoenix Saga" is one of the best comic book stories put to the page and there is no way one film could give it the space it needed to breathe. This mistake was already made when the Dark Phoenix story was shoehorned into 2006's X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and the end result was another polarizing film for fans, although that installment did make money and turned a profit. By the time DARK PHOENIX reached test audiences, Kinberg's original intentions were dialed down to one film and those test screenings also indicated that a bigger ending was necessary. Practically the entire climax was reshot and that only sees more money being spent on a film that's already over budget.

The X-Men are now in the hands of Marvel boss Kevin Feige and this final box office report should close the door on the 20th Century Fox X-MEN films. The good news is that you can only go up from the end result of DARK PHOENIX and all we can do is anxiously wait for our favorite mutants to make their MCU debut.

Are YOU surprised DARK PHOENIX took such a loss?