X-Men: Dark Phoenix Made More Than Fantastic Four (But Bombed Harder)
Hey, at least it's not the absolute worst box office return...
The saga of Fox's ill-fated Dark Phoenix production is arguably a lot better than the film that squelched out of the mess to cinema screens in the end. That was ill-considered, misguided and painfully dull thanks to the poor decision to adopt a super-serious tone and a story that was butchered to add on a new ending when it was determined that the first one didn't work.
The second one didn't either, sadly and the film crashed into cinemas on the back of a tidal wave of negativity that was probably outdone by how bad the final product ended up being.
As the film reaches the end of its cinematic run just as Endgame creeps closer to the record box office haul set by Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From home pulls in huge early ticket sales, it's been... disappointing to say the least. That it will end its domestic run at an expected figure of just over $250 million worldwide is equally poor.
It was a bit of a free swing thanks to the Disney deal, but nobody involved in that film could possibly have thought it was going to be this bad. Nor would they have wanted this black mark on their books.
According to Forbes, Dark Phoenix earned just 1.39 times its inflated $200m budget and is set to be a bigger box office bomb than even the ill-fated Fantastic Four, even though it will surpass the $167.9 million it took from a reported $120 million budget in 2015. Because of the higher budget, Dark Phoenix operates at a greater loss.
Surprisingly, audiences were kinder to the movie than critics (judging by its 64% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but that simply didn't translate into money at the box office. Not least because the marketing for the sequel was so poor.
It's all a pretty big shame, really.
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