‘Dark Phoenix’ Director Simon Kinberg Blames Himself For The Film’s Failure

20th Century Fox

Comic book movies almost never bomb, so when they do it’s a big deal. The most recent example: a little movie called Dark Phoenix. It’s the latest — and almost certainly final — X-Men picture, and it opened to poor reviews and relative puny box office last weekend. Need someone to blame? Why not its director?

As per Entertainment Weekly, Simon Kinberg — the longtime blockbuster screenwriter, who made his behind-the-lens debut with Dark Phoenix — told KCRW’s The Business that the fault lies with him.

“It clearly 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,” Kinberg admitted. “So that’s on me.”

That being said, he’s not consumed with regret. “I loved making the movie, and I loved the people I made the movie with,” he added.

Dark Phoenix retold the eponymous story — a favorite among the X-Men community, in which Jean Grey (played in the film by Sophie Turner) goes, well, bad. It’s such a popular X-Men tale that it was previously told in 2007’s X-Men: The Last Stand, in which Famke Janssen’s Grey killed just about everybody. Dark Phoenix had a notably tumultuous production, involving delays and an ending that had to be re-shot after they realized it was a bit similar to the capper of Captain Marvel.

(Via EW)

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