It’s very rare that a director will speak on the failure of a film, especially a mere week after its release but Simon Kinberg spoke candidly with the KCRW podcast The Business a week after Dark Phoenix was released and Kinberg takes full responsibility for its box office failure.
“It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with audiences that didn’t see it, it didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it. So that’s on me.” Kinberg recognized that it was not painful for him to reflect on Dark Phoenix so soon after the bomb because he genuinely likes the movie. “I loved making the movie, and I loved the people I made the movie with.”
Kinberg said that he reflected on words from director Ridley Scott while they were working on The Martian and he received words of encouragement from Deadpool director Tim Miller after the release & negative feedback. Scott listed G.I. Jane as the favorite movie that he’s worked on, even though it’s not considered one of his classics, like Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise or Gladiator. “He said it was his favorite because it was just a great process and he learned a lot on the process of making it.” Miller wrote Kinberg an email with his words for the director: “He wrote me an email having empathy for a movie that doesn’t work. He wrote people will come to see the movie differently, and out of the context of this particular moment, see things in it they will appreciate and that he appreciated as a fan.”
Kinberg does acknowledge that Dark Phoenix was never meant to be a summer event film, a fact that seems to be proven by its original release date of November of last year. The film was shifted to February so the film could do third act reshoots and then moved to June for a couple of reasons that have been floating around. One argument was for it to have a better release date in China, where it’s pulling decent numbers and another was that James Cameron insisted his Alita: Battle Angel get the February release from 20th Century Fox which played a part in them moving Dark Phoenix.
Dark Phoenix debuted on June 7 and scored only $32.8 million at the US box office. At an estimated $200 million production cost before marketing, that’s not a great start. Not helping is the critical reception, which registered 23 percent rotten on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest score ever for an X-Men movie. The opening is also the lowest of the franchise with every other film in the franchise opening to at least $50 million. In its second weekend, the film tumbled 71.5% to $9.3 million and has grossed just $204 million worldwide.
Let’s keep in mind this is his first film as a director & at least he didn’t pull a Josh Trank ala Fantastic 4 and blame everyone but himself for that film’s failure. I commend him for speaking on it and not pointing fingers. Kinberg is set to direct 335 for Universal next & Dark Phoenix co-star Jessica Chastain is on board for that so that shows her faith in him. A lot of outside forces were at play and I think he did the best he could.
