10 Behind-The-Scenes Movie Stories Better Than The Actual Plot
3. Nobody Knew What It Was About - X-Men: Dark Phoenix
The X-Men series hit a low-water point with 2017's X-Men: Apocalypse and executives walked away feeling that the movie's problems were entirely constrained to flukes, and too many bangs and flashes. In earlier films, when perennial problem-child Bryan Singer refused to show up on set, Simon Kinberg stepped in to help direct - and now he was the sole director for Dark Phoenix.
After the whole movie was filmed they knew reshoots would be needed - but everybody expected this. Acclaimed Kinberg project X-Men First Class had extensive reshoots because half the third act wasn't even written, yet when filming wrapped. Dark Phoenix's release was moved to the following February, but quickly moved further back to June. Apparently this is because James Cameron wanted the February slot for Alita: Battle Angel, fearing too much strong competition otherwise.
Insiders say that the marketing crew had little direction on how promote the film because they weren't sure if it was a franchise end, a new beginning, or what it was. As a result of the poor marketing the film wound up being bested in awareness by Avengers: Endgame - by this time having been out for over five weeks - and the Elton John biopic, Rocketman. As a result longtime X-Men Producer Lauren Donner announced via Twitter that she "Had zero, nothing to do with Dark Phoenix." Fox, to its credit, shot back stating that she didn't have anything to do with the more successful films, either. Ooo, executive drama.