Dark Phoenix is officially the worst performing X-Men film of all time

How X-Tremely disappointing

Sophie Turner as Jean Grey in X-Men Dark Pheonix. She looks intensely at the camera with a red glow in her eyes.

Fox

Published: Monday, 19 August 2019 at 11:37 am

Dark Phoenix has officially crashed and burned at the box office, with the Sophie Turner-starring superhero movie (which is said to be the last of the X-Men movies with the current cast) taking just $254.4million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo).

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For comparison, this is $40 million less than the very first 20th Century Fox X-Men movie managed to take in 2000, the previous low point for the franchise, and over $500 million less than Deadpool 2, the highest-grossing X-Men movie to date released last year.

In other words, it’s another rather unfortunate new record for Simon Kinberg’s beleaguered blockbuster, which also previously set the lowest opening box office weekend of the series.

"It clearly is a movie that didn't connect with audiences that didn't see it,” director Kinberg previously told KCRW’s Kim Masters.

"I’m here, I’m saying when a movie doesn’t work, put it on me. I’m the writer-director, the movie didn’t connect with audiences, that’s on me."

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He added: "I mean honestly, there’s no way to know [why].

"And that’s the thing that I think can drive people crazy and keep them up and be thinking about a movie’s failure years later. If the lesson you’ve learned is that you had the wrong date or you didn’t have good marketing--that’s not a lesson."

Now, with 20th Century Fox owned by Disney and the X-Men reportedly headed for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it looks like these merry mutants could be headed for a serious reboot in the next few years.

And based on these box office numbers, we can’t imagine audiences will mind too much. Clearly, they weren’t really watching the current X-Men anyway.

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Looking for something to watch? X-Men movies in order or check out our TV Guide.

Authors

Radio Times commissioning editor Huw Fullerton. He sits in front of a shelving unit, looking at the camera and smiling. He wears glasses and has a moustache

Huw FullertonCommissioning editor

Huw Fullerton is a commissioning editor for Radio Times magazine handling comedy, entertainment and specialist drama. In a previous regeneration, he covered all things sci-fi and fantasy for RadioTimes.com.

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