After a troubled production, extensive re-shoots and several release date delays, 20th Century Fox unleashed the final installment of its X-Men series last month, and while many fans predicted that the movie would fail to deliver, as it turns out X-Men: Dark Phoenix is now shaping up to be one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.
Dark Phoenix has grossed just $249.4 million worldwide, with a North American haul of $64.8 million – a figure that eight of the previous X-Men movies topped in their opening weekend alone. It remains some $46 million short of the $296.3 million global haul of the original X-Men movie (previously the lowest grossing chapter in the series), and is the only entry not to reach $150 million domestically.
Taking things from bad to worse, Forbes is reporting that Dark Phoenix is on course to become an even bigger bust that the disastrous 2015 reboot Fantastic Four. The Josh Trank-directed flop grossed $167.9 million off a $120 million budget, giving it a return of 1.39x its production cost, while Dark Phoenix is only looking at a return of around 1.25x.
Of course, those numbers don’t take into account marketing costs or the exhibitors’ cut of ticket sales, and all in all it’s expected that Dark Phoenix will lose somewhere between $100 and $150 million during its theatrical run, making it one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.
This is the story of one of the X-Men’s most beloved characters, Jean Grey, as she evolves into the iconic DARK PHOENIX. During a life-threatening rescue mission in space, Jean is hit by a cosmic force that transforms her into one of the most powerful mutants of all. Wrestling with this increasingly unstable power as well as her own personal demons, Jean spirals out of control, tearing the X-Men family apart and threatening to destroy the very fabric of our planet. The film is the most intense and emotional X-Men movie ever made. It is the culmination of 20 years of X-Men movies, as the family of mutants that we’ve come to know and love must face their most devastating enemy yet — one of their own.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix sees Simon Kinberg directing a cast that includes franchise veterans Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Professor X), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) alongside new additions Kota Eberhardt (The Persian Connection) as Selene, Andrew Stehlin (Hacksaw Ridge) as Red Lotus, and Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game) and Lamar Johnson (Kings).
via Flickering Myth