10 Recent Movies That Were Sent Out To Die
1. Dark Phoenix
If you listened closely enough on Dark Phoenix's opening weekend, you could hear the funeral march playing softly from every cinema attempting to push this film on audiences.
Arguably, Fox did too much to try and promote this film's high stakes and essential viewing nature with their bizarre trailers revealing major character deaths and heavy cast appearances on most major American talk shows. It was to be expected from a major franchise, but it was apparent very early on that none of this would end up mattering when it came to the box office receipts.
Dark Phoenix managed $250 million against a $200 million budget - a production confidence that seems crazy knowing what we know now about its general quality and public perception. This is the lowest X-Men gross by $45 million, and earns that last place slot next to a film released 20 years ago when superhero movies were a non-presence in Hollywood.
Dark Phoenix was truly sent out to die in lieu of the Disney-Fox merger, with everyone knowing a reboot would be coming soon to save the declining quality of the series. This film just never had anything going for it.