Dark Phoenix Flops Opening Weekend, Set To Lose Over $100M

John Romero | June 10, 2019
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Even with a star-studded cast, boasting actresses Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones and Jennifer Lawrence, Dark Phoenix came as a disappointment to fans and moviegoers in its debut opening weekend.

With a lackluster plot and weak script in general, critics and moviegoers did not give Dark Phoenix the reception FOX had wanted.

The film was the worst performing X-Men film of the series, grossing just $33 million in the U.S. and expected to lose the studio $100 million, if not more, at current sales projections. 

Deadline reports

Critics showed that with a 22% Rotten Tomatoes score, while audiences demonstrated that both in exits (B- CinemaScore, lowest ever for the franchise, and an awful 69% positive on PostTrak) and with their wallets, only spending $33M stateside, the lowest debut ever for the Fox/Marvel mutant franchise.

Even though Dark Phoenix is the No. 1 winner around the globe with $140M –down substantially from the worldwide launches of X-Men: Days of Future Past ($262.9M), Logan ($247.4M) and X-Men: Apocalypse ($166.6M), finance experts tell us that the tale of Jean Grey will burn out with an estimated $100M-$120M loss after ancillaries, off a combined production and P&A estimated cost of $350M+ (which includes reshoots). Final global B.O. is projected at $300M-$325M, with one film finance suit telling us 'If it drops like a stone, $285M. Don’t forget it was a holiday in China, and even that was pretty low ($45.7M).'

Dark Phoenix was even beaten by The Secret Life of Pets 2, a film that was attacked last week "as an animated ode to heteronormativity, toxic masculinity and patriarchal worldviews, passed off as harmless plot points to entertain young audiences." This, all because the film had no political spin and even lifted up traditional family values.

If that wasn't bad enough, Dark Phoenix had a clear progressive overtone to it. In what could be one of the corniest lines of the entire movie, Lawrence’s character, Raven, delivers this line that sounds like it was written by a middle-schooler.

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