The X-Men films have always held an uneasy position as both the originators of the modern superhero blockbuster and one of Marvel’s weakest franchises.
The original 2000 film and its sequel, X-2, were great for their time if a little shaky upon rewatching. But the intervening 19 years have seen ten other movies released, ranging from the terrible (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) to the near-perfect (Logan).
A series that came in with a bang seems to be going out with a whimper—last weekend’s Dark Phoenix was a critical and commercial bomb. And given the fact that 20th Century Fox’s final X-Men movie, The New Mutants, had its release date pushed back a full two years, expectations aren’t high for that film, either.
But Dark Phoenix’s writer and director Simon Kinberg gave a frank interview in which he squarely placed the blame for the film’s failure on himself. “It 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,” he said on KCRW’s The Business podcast, “so that’s on me.”
“I don’t think there was a singular mistake,” he continued. “I think the combination or pile-up of challenges that this movie went through led to a disappointing weekend.”
Though Kinberg has worked as a writer and producer on films like Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix marked his directorial debut, and the interview is a refreshingly frank discussion with someone still reckoning with a recent professional failure.
Dark Phoenix had the worst opening weekend of any of the X-Men film and is expected to lose its studio more than US$100 million.