Dark Phoenix

[Bartmanhomer]

Wow I'm surprised no one made a thread about this movie. Well I called dibs on creating the Dark Phoenix movie thread. So anyway I saw the Dark Phoenix movie last night and this is what I really think about the movie:

That movie was wonderful. I enjoy every minute of the movie. Well it's about Jean Grey become the Dark Phoenix. They was so much fighting and action. I was very excited for this movie. It's was a pure masterpiece and it's definitely Oscar worthy. I'll give this movie 5 out of 5 stars for a perfect movie. :smile:

[tomandtish]

No falling asleep? High praise!

More seriously, glad you enjoyed it, but you are probably in the minority. While I haven't seen it yet, it apparently has the worst opening of any movie in the franchise, and is on track to lose aprox, $100 million.

Not sure I'm going to see it in the theater, because I just don't think you can do any justice to the story-line in one movie. it really seems like it needs

[Bartmanhomer]

No falling asleep? High praise!

More seriously, glad you enjoyed it, but you are probably in the minority. While I haven't seen it yet, it apparently has the worst opening of any movie in the franchise, and is on track to lose aprox, $100 million.

Not sure I'm going to see it in the theater, because I just don't think you can do any justice to the story-line in one movie. it really seems like it needs

I have my fair share of boring movies.....

And Dark Phoenix isn't one of the boring movies. :wink:

[Kitten Champion]

The question I have at this point is whether they're still going to release The New Mutants movie in theatres anymore, or if they'll just post it on their streaming service sometime in 2020. I don't know which medium would be deemed as a better return on the investment in whatever equations they use, so a theatrical release may just be inevitable regardless. Still, I wouldn't want the spectre of repeated flops from a "we now control the Marvel brand in its entirety"-standpoint were I Disney.

[Zalabim]

I saw the movie opening day. Didn't really prompt much to say about the movie. It was more of a "dark" Phoenix movie than a "Dark Phoenix" movie. I think the overall experience probably suffered from being very mono tone. Even at the end when things are well in her hand and she's tearing apart the aliens, there's no relief. It's horrific and one-sided and it ends with her having to leave the Earth (at least for now) to prevent it being torn apart by the Phoenix Force anyway. There's never really any hope for a happy resolution at any point, so it all just presses me down with unending gloom, much like real life.

Great fight scenes, interesting choice of aliens, interesting choice to use aliens, for that matter. There's plenty of power on display, but it's mostly dark rather than fantastic. The movie is also banking on being a sequel. It doesn't spend much time characterizing or introducing the characters. You're supposed to already know, like, and care about them from previous movies. Which have been a while back, so I don't remember why we're know, like, or care about these characters already. But I was able to pick up on the relationships by inference from the little bit that's included in this one. Mission accomplished?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Dark Phoenix has managed to knock The Wolverine from its pedestal as the worst opening for a FoX-Men film, and that's with years of inflation buoying it up. (In fact, this whole weekend sucked.) At this point it's an even money bet that the film is going to lose a lot of money, and will likely end any ideas Disney-Marvel had about lifting bits of the old series to use in their new movies. Wholesale reboot coming up.

[Talakeal]

This movie failed on every level. Easilly the worst X-men movie of all time, even Origins is better by a mile. I don't have time to list the things I was dissapointed by, so instead I will say what I liked:

Halston Sage as Dazzler. All twenty seconds of her.

[Friv]

I guess I'll be the one halfway between Bartmanhomer and Talakeal!

It was okay. I'd put it around two-thirds of the way down the list of X-Movies. It was leagues better than Wolverine Origins or X3.

What it might be is the most disappointing movie of the franchise. Every part of it comes very close to working, then falls down at the finish line. The action scenes are solid, and about two-thirds of the cast is doing great work. Nothing about the plot makes even a lick of sense, and a few characters are getting brutalized to get the pieces to where they need to be for the next section.

I am curious about what this movie was going to look like, though. There was a ton of extra filming done at the last minute, due to the movie's ending being so similar to another movie (rumoured to be Captain Marvel) that the studio panicked and was afraid of being accused of plagiarism. Rumour has it that the original ending took place in space, and the entire train battle wasn't there, and that the D'Bari had drastically different motivations. I think that might be a big part of why none of it quite holds together; they were literally building towards something that got changed on them, and had to scramble to try and make things make sense.

In some ways, this also makes it the most accurate comic book movie of all time - one where editorial mandates force the writers to toss aside all of their plans to make a worse product than they were hoping for.

[Kitten Champion]

Halston Sage as Dazzler. All twenty seconds of her.

Awww~

I've wanted Dazzler in a movie for a while. I thought she'd be an obvious addition to the First Class time-line, especially when they got to the early 80's in Apocalypse which seemed an ideal opportunity to do whole sequence with full-on sparkly Disco-Queen Dazzler. Apparently she got referenced in a deleted scene there, but who cares?

[Bartmanhomer]

I don't know why everyone said that the Dark Phoenix is horrible. It's a genuine masterpiece. :confused:

[Aluminum Man]

Is there another wacky Quicksilver scene where he runs really faster and everything else is in slow motion to the juxtaposition of a pop culture song? If so spoilers please.


I don't know why everyone said that the Dark Phoenix is horrible. It's a genuine masterpiece. :confused:

I'm not sure if that's sarcasm, and that's frightening.

[Bartmanhomer]

Is there another wacky Quicksilver scene where he runs really faster and everything else is in slow motion to the juxtaposition of a pop culture song? If so spoilers please.



I'm not sure if that's sarcasm, and that's frightening.

It wasn't sarcasm because I didn't put the blue text. That movie was really great I enjoy it. :smile:

[Talakeal]

Is there another wacky Quicksilver scene where he runs really faster and everything else is in slow motion to the juxtaposition of a pop culture song? If so spoilers please.



I'm not sure if that's sarcasm, and that's frightening.

Absolutely not.

Anything you loved about the other x men movies is not in this one.

[Friv]

Is there another wacky Quicksilver scene where he runs really faster and everything else is in slow motion to the juxtaposition of a pop culture song? If so spoilers please.

There are two "Quicksilver runs fast" scenes, one longer than the other. Neither one is super-long, though, and neither one has pop culture songs juxtaposed over it.

[Corlindale]

I thought it was decent entertainment at least, and had some ok fight scenes, though a step down from the previous movies. Maybe some of the enthusiasm came from it being one of the first times in a long while I actually went to the cinema, though.

Severely disappointed by the lack of cool Quicksilver bits, I really thought they were A Thing at this point. The Quicksilver scene in Apocalypse is truly one of my favourite scenes in anything ever, and I must have watched it at least 20 times. I was really expecting something similarly cool here, sad they did not deliver.

Also, I felt there was a real missed opportunity in the train sequence:

Nightcrawler goes on a super-cliche berserker rampage once the soldier who lets them out dies. It would have been infinitely cooler if the soldier had simply been injured, and Nightcrawler had teleported him to an emergency room. It could have been a funny scene through the extreme tonal shift from battle to calm hospital setting (combined with staff's reaction to Nightcrawler's strange appearance), it could have been emotional too, it could have cemented Nightcrawler as the genuinely good-hearted person I think he is meant to be, and it would have emphasised the point that being a hero is about way more than just fighting mooks. There's probably some catch to his in-universe powers that would make it unrealistic, although we do see him doing long-range teleportation in this (but only through Xavier). And perhaps it would be unrealistic that he knows a nearby hospital well enough to teleport there, especially given that they probably don't know where they are. But still... could have been amazing.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Kurt teleports places he's never been all the time. He's also carried along the entire X-Men team. One guy to a hospital should be nothing. Simplest explanation is the writers didn't care, because he's just a mook.

[Talakeal]

Kurt teleports places he's never been all the time. He's also carried along the entire X-Men team. One guy to a hospital should be nothing. Simplest explanation is the writers didn't care, because he's just a mook.

I wondered the same thing about Mystique.

[Lord Torath]

Slate.com's review (https://slate.com/culture/2019/06/dark-phoenix-x-men-movie-adaptation-review-comics.html) was that it was an okay movie by itself, and watching it made you remember just how awesome the original Dark Phoenix comics were.

[Mordar]

Kurt teleports places he's never been all the time. He's also carried along the entire X-Men team. One guy to a hospital should be nothing. Simplest explanation is the writers didn't care, because he's just a mook.

Old-guy chime-in: He could only safely 'port to places he can see (either directly or through a telepath) for fear of teleporting into a person or object. He could carry additional loads (including people) but it was very tiring, but even when I was still reading that amount was increasing.

Of course, power creep being what it is, he could probably Teleport Without Error while carrying any load by now.

- M

[Palanan]

Just saw this. What a pile of ridiculous.

I didn’t think it was possible to make an X-Men movie worse than Last Stand, but here we are.



What a cheap, pathetic way to kill off Raven. Yes, it served as motivation for Hank and Eric to go all hardcore, but it felt trivial, and a trite end for one of the major characters in the franchise.

Thing is, Raven didn’t need to die. Back in the day, Rachel Summers took three adamantium claws to the heart and still kept herself going, simply by telekinetically holding her heart together. Jean could have done the same, at least long enough to get Raven to surgery or a mutant healer.

That she didn’t even try…made it all the more contrived.

These movies simply can’t find someone capable of playing Scott Summers. We’ve had at least three actors cast as Scott, and this one is the worst of the lot—too young and zero personality.

In part because of this, Scott and Jean have absolutely zero chemistry together. They’re not a believable match, much less a couple I care about—which means that one of the central relationships within the X-Men effectively doesn’t exist.

Back in the day, Scott and Jean were the flames to watch. Their relationship had complex harmonics even before the Phoenix arrived; they weren’t just a couple, they were a team within the team. Needless to say, this movie failed to capture even a hint of that depth and complexity. Scott is just the boyfriend that Jean likes for some inexplicable reason.

One of the most memorable moments from the comics is when Jean gets Scott alone and, over his protests, pulls off his ruby-quartz glasses. Nothing happens; and Scott is stunned that Jean is able to hold back his optic blast with such casual ease. It marked a subtle but significant change in their relationship in the comics. That would have been a signature moment for this movie, but nothing like it was ever attempted.

For me, Sansa Stark makes a terrible Jean Grey. I was willing to give Sophie Turner another chance, but she’s simply not a good enough actress to inhabit a completely different character, and all we get is a rather tepid “Ican’tcontrolmypowerI’MAHURTSOMEONE!!!” over and over.

Part of this disappointment is that she’s too muted, too bland. Jean Grey has a spark, she has flair, and yes, she’s a looker of a redhead who doesn’t mind attracting attention. That aspect of her personality is simply absent here, and she’s a duller character because of it.

Also, that was the tidiest couple’s room I’ve ever seen. It looked like a hotel room rather than someplace two people actually lived full time.

I kept rolling my eyes at the clumsy efforts to make Xavier the bad guy because of his attempts to contain Jean’s trauma when she was a child.

It’s worth arguing whether psychic surgery is ethical or even effective, but the movie’s treatment of the subject is clumsy and obtuse, simply smacking us upside the head with a foregone conclusion and then hitting us over the head again to make sure we got it. It reduces the complex moral decisions which Xavier has had to make into simple, obvious blunders—and this for a telepath dealing with extraordinary metahumans with no precedent whatsoever.

Sorry, but I’m on Team Charles for this one. Just like Raven’s death, the movie’s attempt to pile all the blame on Charles is too contrived for me to buy.

Are we supposed to know who the D’Bari are? I grew up reading X-Men and I don’t remember this crowd.

Apparently we’re supposed to believe this is some lost remnant that has some connection to the Phoenix force…or something? They’re sort of generically evil, shapeshifting aliens with creepy powers.

And this is the sort of opponent the X-Men should be eating for breakfast, which leads to my next issue:

For a team that mutant vigilante Mystique has supposedly been whipping into a crack fighting force, the X-Kids seem to have no real clue about tactics. Why is Storm spending so much of her time standing places, instead of taking the high ground among the thunderclouds? Why is Kurt not bamfing people off the train one by one? Why is Magneto wasting time with levitated machine guns when he can compress the entire rail car into a ten-inch cube?

Really, the tactics and teamwork we saw in First Class, basic as they were, far surpassed anything here, even though the X-Kids are supposed to have been training and fighting together for years by now. They should’ve rolled those aliens with ease—but instead everything was dialed way, way down to make Jean look better by melting a few alien heads.

This was a gratuitous girl-power line from Raven, but what seemed far stranger was renaming the school the Jean Grey Institute. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened in the comics at some point, but if so I missed it.

It hardly makes sense, since it was Xavier’s vision that saw the founding and successful operation of the school. Jean Grey deserved a memorial garden or something, but hardly the whole school renamed after her—not when she had no particular vision for the world. Yes, she transcended heroically, but with mutants that tends to happen a lot.




Originally Posted by Talakeal
Halston Sage as Dazzler. All twenty seconds of her.

I was looking forward to this, and it was tremendously disappointing. Dazzler was too tame by half—sparkling when she should’ve been flaring, crooning when she should’ve been belting. Dazzler can create incredible lightshows, so why is she just glittering a little?

Also, I never would’ve guessed it was Halston Sage.


Originally Posted by Mordar
Old-guy chime-in: [Nightcrawler] could only safely 'port to places he can see (either directly or through a telepath) for fear of teleporting into a person or object. He could carry additional loads (including people) but it was very tiring, but even when I was still reading that amount was increasing.

Back in the day, Kurt’s range was established as only three or four miles, although this may have been retconned or expanded several times by now. I seem to recall he had an easier time moving along magnetic fieldlines than perpendicular to them, but I’m not sure if that part is canon.


Originally Posted by Talakeal
This movie failed on every level.

I’m just hoping that this is a wrap for the current incarnation of the franchise. It’s a sad way to go out, but I’m not sure where they could go from here that wouldn’t just make things worse.

.

[Rogar Demonblud]

The Xavier School was rebranded with Jean's name several years ago, probably because of the number of times "Xavier School Destroyed in Pitched Battle" has been a headline.

[Lemmy]

My friend got me and a free ticket and I still feel like I deserve a refund. Its few good moments simply don't last long enough to give the movie any real entertainment value.

This movie alternates between boring and cringe-worthy. A bad end for the current X-men troop movie incarnation, but such is life...

[Cen]

renaming the school the Jean Grey Institute. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened in the comics at some point, but if so I missed it.




DOne in 2015, All-new X-men storyline. It's pretty good.

[deuterio12]

Of course magneto is weaker now that he joined the good guys, it's the old magnus rule in effect. When the big bad boss joins the hero team they previously could take head on, they take a massive hit to their stats.

[Devonix]

The Xavier School was rebranded with Jean's name several years ago, probably because of the number of times "Xavier School Destroyed in Pitched Battle" has been a headline.

It was done in honor of her,but also because Logan was taking the school in a different direction. He got tired of it being used as nothing but a training ground for child soldiers, and wanted to make it an actual school.

[Anteros]

Nightcrawler maintains his momentum when he teleports. I haven't seen the movie, and I'm sure they could work around it, but logically teleporting an injured person from a moving train to a hospital would probably kill them both and anyone in their path.

[Starbuck_II]

You know why Raven had that "accident", it was because Wolverine was freed instead of befriended like original timeline.

Raven gives a few Wolverine speeches. So, it was inevitable was what happened.
After all, Wolverine can take a hit easily, Raven not as much.

Beast shouldn't have been made that new position at end. It should have been Scott. Especially after what Beast did
He tried to assassinate Jean and they made him Head Master. He does not have the ability to be leader or discern without bias like Scott or even Storm


Really, the film felt too dark and not enough humor. I prefer a few quips or something. Like salt on your watermelon, a little humor dashed in the dark brings a contrast that enhances the flavor, but we had none in this one that I remembered.

Also, I kept thinking "Charles was right" because no matter wjat the film wanted the message to be, he turned out to be right.
Now, I do think Charles should have told her because the first mission in this film, but I understand why he waited till she was non-kid.

[Friv]

Nightcrawler maintains his momentum when he teleports. I haven't seen the movie, and I'm sure they could work around it, but logically teleporting an injured person from a moving train to a hospital would probably kill them both and anyone in their path.

While that would make sense, in this movie Nightcrawler only intermittently maintains his momentum when teleporting. Sometimes he teleports and it's fine, but he also teleports someone from inside the moving train to directly in front of the moving train and then teleports himself back inside, and neither he nor the person he kills are still moving.

I think we can go with "range plus sight" for this one. I'm pretty sure that it's made clear that he is very bad at teleporting where he can't see (at the start of the film they need to stop the shuttle spinning so that he can see inside it and safely teleport in.)

[Chen]

Nightcrawler maintains his momentum when he teleports. I haven't seen the movie, and I'm sure they could work around it, but logically teleporting an injured person from a moving train to a hospital would probably kill them both and anyone in their path.

Momentum relative to what though? Reference frame would matter quite a lot here.

[Mordar]

Momentum relative to what though? Reference frame would matter quite a lot here.

Relative to the place he is going to appear, I imagine. I don't think this is too theoretical an issue. In the first instance I recall of Kurt teleporting into a situation where his momentum mattered (Uncanny X-Men 146 & 147...it was the cliffhanger of 146) he teleported miles (? It was a big distance) straight up out of a featureless cell on the expectation that it would be safe (at least as compared to any lateral teleport). He reappeared in the sky thousands of feet above the ground, and as things that are unsupported in the air are wont to do, immediately started plummeting earthward. He tells us that he can't just teleport to a spot on the ground even though he can see it, because he would still be falling at the same full rate and would turn into a blue splatter. [Spoiler: He manages to survive because he catches an updraft off the mountains and that at least temporarily abates his falling rate and then 'ports to the ground].

Hurtling along on a train (other than the one at Disneyland, anyway) and then 'porting to a stationary hospital room would be problematic for the Nightcrawler I know...but as I mentioned above, it is entirely possible there has been power creep/expansion/training that allows him to change those sorts of characteristics when he bamfs.

- M

[Talakeal]

But he teleports infront of the train in the same scene with no momentum problems.

[GloatingSwine]

Quite a lot of superhero powers gain and lose limits like that as the drama demands.

Nightcrawler is at least able to alter the direction of travel on return so he shouldn’t have any problems with momentum because he can fire himself upwards and teleport again when he has bled it off to gravity.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Basically what Harem does in Grrl Power.

[Mordar]

But he teleports infront of the train in the same scene with no momentum problems.


Quite a lot of superhero powers gain and lose limits like that as the drama demands.

Nightcrawler is at least able to alter the direction of travel on return so he shouldn’t have any problems with momentum because he can fire himself upwards and teleport again when he has bled it off to gravity.

...at least in the movies! :smallsmile:

Which I think puts it back in the "Kurt didn't try to save the guy because the filmmakers wanted a Nightcrawler Rage! scene...?

- M

[Anteros]

But he teleports infront of the train in the same scene with no momentum problems.

Well, like I said I haven't seen the movie. I was just stating how his powers are supposed to work.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Powers=Plot is the formula I use for superhero media. It's about as ubiquitous as Speed=Plot in sci-fi.

[Chen]

Relative to the place he is going to appear, I imagine.

Thing is momentum is relative. Consider I have zero momentum with respect to the chair Im sitting on. But my momentum is huge with respect to say, the sun. Or even a similar chair that is not moving but on the other side of the planet if I take my momentum relative to some point not on the surface of the earth. Thats the problem with either conservation or non conservation of momentum when teleportation is involved. For example he teleports into a plane in X2 to save rogue and then back out. How would that have worked?

[Kitten Champion]

My understanding of Nightcrawler's powers is he's not teleporting, he's plane-shifting from one place on Marvel's Earth to a hellish dimension and back again at a different location with such rapidity that he can't really perceive the movement, like a needle moving through cloth on sewing machine.

So, I think there is an interim state between BAMFs where he can alter his momentum and how his body is positioned. Though I'm far from definite on that.

[Devonix]

My understanding of Nightcrawler's powers is he's not teleporting, he's plane-shifting from one place on Marvel's Earth to a hellish dimension and back again at a different location with such rapidity that he can't really perceive the movement, like a needle moving through cloth on sewing machine.

So, I think there is an interim state between BAMFs where he can alter his momentum and how his body is positioned. Though I'm far from definite on that.

You're right. The purpke smoke is the atmospherr from that other dimension leaking in when he teleports. He can also trap people and things there as well.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And occasionally let something from that dimension out. Because there are no mutants without complications to their powers (which is usually a plus in my books).

[weckar]

This movie quickly starts to make a ton more sense when you realize the slew of rewrites it went through.

Like, the whole train sequence was reshoots on the outside. Those absurdly spacious train cars? Originally space ship corridors.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by weckar
Like, the whole train sequence was reshoots on the outside. Those absurdly spacious train cars? Originally space ship corridors.

Interesting. Do you have a source on that?

Also, sad. As some national reviewers have noted, this movie retells Last Stand, but worse in just about every way, and on a piddly scale. At the very least they could have given us a secret lunar city, which is where Jean Grey (or a phoenix duplicate thereof) originally managed her own demise, right in front of Scott.

[Rodin]

Interesting. Do you have a source on that?

Also, sad. As some national reviewers have noted, this movie retells Last Stand, but worse in just about every way, and on a piddly scale. At the very least they could have given us a secret lunar city, which is where Jean Grey (or a phoenix duplicate thereof) originally managed her own demise, right in front of Scott.

A quick look on Google points to this article (https://ew.com/movies/2019/04/26/dark-phoenix-summer-movie-preview/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=link&utm_term=021897E8-6835-11E9-BC3D-9C86C28169F1&utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly_ew) as the original source. A couple other articles have quotes from people involved with the production that confirm that the third act was moved from space to a train.

--

I wonder how many people had my reaction to the trailer, which was "What, again?" We saw the plot in Last Stand, and Last Stand was terrible. Why would we want to go see the same plot again?

I'm willing to bet that more than anything else is why the movie opened so poorly. They tied themselves to a very bad movie, and people stayed away.

[Lemmy]

I wonder how many people had my reaction to the trailer, which was "What, again?" We saw the plot in Last Stand, and Last Stand was terrible. Why would we want to go see the same plot again?

I'm willing to bet that more than anything else is why the movie opened so poorly. They tied themselves to a very bad movie, and people stayed away.
I don't know... Coming after "X-Men - Apocalypse" must also have weighed heavily in most people's mind. The only reason I even saw the movie is because a friend of mine can get very cheap tickets.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rodin
A quick look on Google points to this article as the original source.

All that article says is that it was moved from space to a train—there’s no mention of the train interiors having originally been starship corridors, as weckar claimed. That was the point I wanted a source on, because the interiors looked very much like trains, and nothing at all like starship corridors.

The article does mention that this was the director's first movie, which goes a way towards explaining why it was so timid.

[Devonix]

All that article says is that it was moved from space to a train—there’s no mention of the train interiors having originally been starship corridors, as weckar claimed. That was the point I wanted a source on, because the interiors looked very much like trains, and nothing at all like starship corridors.

The article does mention that this was the director's first movie, which goes a way towards explaining why it was so timid.

Well he did the screenplay for X-men the last stand. And the Screenplay for this one as well. So maybe the problem is him?

[Ramza00]

The article does mention that this was the director's first movie, which goes a way towards explaining why it was so timid.

Wait? They had a Director who has never been a Director before?

Googles....

OMG it is True.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1334526/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

😲😵😖😕

I am sorry I do not care if you been a producer for 2 dozen projects. Lots of them being in the X-Men First Class + Fox universe with also Deadpool, Fantastic Four remake, Legion etc. I do not care if you are tied to other production things such as Jumper, Elysium, Designated Survior etc.

And the Director also has some experience being a writer with a dozen credits some of which include writing X-Men: The Last Stand, Jumper, Sherlock Holmes, Days of Future Past, Fantastic Four (2015)...etc

Get some directing experience prior to directing a $200 million movie! :smallfurious: Do some tv episodes, or an indie film, or a cheap horror movie. Learn the craft and gain some skills before doing a $200 million movie. You can do a $200 million movie, but practice is necessary for good results. God I am angry now. Production and Directing and Writing are different jobs entirely much like Flying an Airplane is different than Repairing an Airplane.

How many women have directed $200 million movies? The answer is 0! Only 9 women prior to 2019 have directed movies with a budget of $100 million or more! For example Captain Marvel budget was $150 million. Wonder Woman (2017) was also $150 million and at the time of Production only 3 woman Directors have crossed the $100 million threshold.

This world is messed up, and it is unfortunate that we choose to allow it to remain this messed up. :smallmad:

Well the director of Dark Phoenix Simon Kinberg says he is proud of his movie but he also blames himself for the bad box office results.

https://www.thewrap.com/simon-kinberg-blames-himself-for-dark-phoenix-box-office-bomb/

[Narkis]

Well the director of Dark Phoenix Simon Kinberg says he is proud of his movie but he also blames himself for the bad box office results.

https://www.thewrap.com/simon-kinberg-blames-himself-for-dark-phoenix-box-office-bomb/

Props for accepting responsibility instead of blaming an ungrateful audience like a few other recent high-profile cases.

[Ramza00]

Props for accepting responsibility instead of blaming an ungrateful audience like a few other recent high-profile cases.

Yes props for that. And his writting / production record is mix (and that is okay) some really good stuff and some really bad stuff.

But you should direct at least some smaller projects prior to doing a $200 million movie. TV episodes and Indie Films exist for a reason. You may not need much practice but at least get some of it before doing the HUGE thing. And even taking over as a pseudo director for Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse is not the same. (Singer was famous for no-showing that movie if Singer was not in the mood.)

[Kitten Champion]

I wonder how many people had my reaction to the trailer, which was "What, again?" We saw the plot in Last Stand, and Last Stand was terrible. Why would we want to go see the same plot again?

I'm willing to bet that more than anything else is why the movie opened so poorly. They tied themselves to a very bad movie, and people stayed away.


I don't know... Coming after "X-Men - Apocalypse" must also have weighed heavily in most people's mind. The only reason I even saw the movie is because a friend of mine can get very cheap tickets.

It's some of both. When a movie in a franchise is bad it's usually the next entry which gets hit harder financially speaking, even in the cases where its sequel is technically better. Apocalypse killed the struggling main-series X-Men movies' momentum after Days of Future Past had renewed it significantly.

Speaking just for myself, whatever other faults it had, the worst one was that Apocalypse didn't leave me wanting to follow the new cast despite that should largely have been the point. Its version of these characters were given bare-bones development at best and were largely forgettable, not because of the actors involved - they did fine with the material given to them, and I really like its Storm - but they simply didn't get much to do to where they were anything more than merely recognizable as the characters they were supposed to be rather than providing anything interesting to distinguish themselves. The movie was simply too muddled with too much going on and not enough of it good to have those character moments that made you care about them.

Which - putting aside The Last Stand that was drowned in plot-lines - made me very skeptical that they could pull off a story arc like Dark Phoenix which was built on years of comic readers' familiarity with these characters even if they just focused on it this time. To suddenly have the original team heroine who was the centre of these young adult soap-opera story-lines and hitherto a picture of chaste virtue dressing like a dominatrix and partying with a hedonistic cult all eventually culminating in her getting ultimate power and burning literal worlds... that was a thing which vaulted expectations and naturally led to a lot of internal conflicts among the rest of the X-Men which was the emotional heart of the story and why people remember it fondly.

Apocalypse did the further disservice of making much of this new Jean's focus be on foreshadowing her becoming the Phoenix, talking about how the other Mutants fear her for her powers and how she feels all ostracized and moody. Going all the way as to make her manifesting Phoenix powers into the movie's climax with her pulling a dues ex machina and disintegrating the over-powered main villain himself while spouting bird-shaped flames - which apparently they've ret-conned in Dark Phoenix to fit the cosmic death bird original concept, but whatever - essentially giving her negligible screen time to be just be Jean Grey as they did even in the original trilogy. Dark Phoenix needed at least one more movie between it and Apocalypse to renew my interest, for them to have the time to genuinely re-establish these characters and their relationships with one another.

Then - on a meta-level - we knew that this was almost certainly going to be the last entry into the X-Men franchise, that the writer/director/producer was the man responsible for the original train-wreck of Last Stand, that it was delayed numerous times, and with this just coming off of the most successful Superhero movie ever with Endgame for comparison It was engulfed in pretty bleak vortex of negative hype. The reviews did nothing to dissuade audiences that they couldn't simply write this off and wait a few years for a MCU reboot, or, ya'know, rent it I guess.

[Ramza00]

Then - on a meta-level - we knew that this was almost certainly going to be the last entry into the X-Men franchise, that the writer/director/producer was the man responsible for the original train-wreck of Last Stand, that it was delayed numerous times, and with this just coming off of the most successful Superhero movie ever with Endgame for comparison It was engulfed in pretty bleak vortex of negative hype. The reviews did nothing to dissuade audiences that they couldn't simply write this off and wait a few years for a MCU reboot, or, ya'know, rent it I guess.

We know "now" that this was going to be the last X-Men movie, but several post Dark Phoenix things were in production. This is not a comprehensive list but the Director of Dark Phoenix was also producing these movies.

The New Mutants (2020, it appears to be done and has a release date and it is now wondering if Disney is going to cancel it or not.)
Gambit (just recently announced to be abandoned in the last month.)
Untitled Franklin Richards Spin-Off
X-Force
Deadpool 3

So that means at least 4 movies were thought to occur after in the Marvel X-Men universe, and one Fantastic Four thingee.

[Kitten Champion]

We know "now" that this was going to be the last X-Men movie, but several post Dark Phoenix things were in production. This is not a comprehensive list but the Director of Dark Phoenix was also producing these movies.

The New Mutants (2020, it appears to be done and has a release date and it is now wondering if Disney is going to cancel it or not.)
Gambit (just recently announced to be abandoned in the last month.)
Untitled Franklin Richards Spin-Off
X-Force
Deadpool 3

So that means at least 4 movies were thought to occur after in the Marvel X-Men universe, and one Fantastic Four thingee.

No one really believed those were going to be things post-Disney merger, other than The New Mutants which has very good odds of ending up on Hulu or Disney+ and probably Deadpool because he can go wherever and there's clearly still money in him. Besides that, they're not main-series X-Men movies, which push the same-ish continuity from all the way back to when this started in the 90's.

Anyways, let's point to these for what they likely were, an attempt by then Fox to shore up their stockholder's concerns by seemingly having a lot of potential projects on the go within the most profitable space in contemporary motion pictures. Sony has done the same thing with their Venom-universe, some really stupid movie concepts with characters I've never heard of. Announce something, maybe at Comic-Con or in some quiet press release or "report", then maybe get a screen-writer attached, and that's about it.

The potential audience of Dark Phoenix doesn't care that there's some vague notion of an untitled Franklin Richard spin-off movie created by a studio which doesn't really exist anymore that didn't have a release date, cast, or anything beyond a possible screen writer attached. If they know who Franklin Richards is, or how he could exists within the Fan4stic continuity they don't give a damn about where they didn't even have Reed in Sue in an actual romantic relationship. Movies are vaporware until they start production.

[Reddish Mage]

We know "now" that this was going to be the last X-Men movie, but several post Dark Phoenix things were in production. This is not a comprehensive list but the Director of Dark Phoenix was also producing these movies.

The New Mutants (2020, it appears to be done and has a release date and it is now wondering if Disney is going to cancel it or not.)
Gambit (just recently announced to be abandoned in the last month.)
Untitled Franklin Richards Spin-Off
X-Force
Deadpool 3

So that means at least 4 movies were thought to occur after in the Marvel X-Men universe, and one Fantastic Four thingee.

I doubt The New Mutants is being canceled, its already to far ahead having been produced. The idea of giving it Disney Plus actually sounds like more work to promote somebody else's project, if they actually want to make money with this movie (I bet the movie heavily promised sequels too). Disney has a whole in its schedule to fill since James Gunn left (I recall that also pushes back other productions since apparently this GotG3 movie is really vital for setting up the next big story arc).

Disney said that Deadpool can continue in its own universe, but I have a feeling "can" doesn't mean "will." On the other hand, its very popular, had two movies already and no noticeable negative backlash. I'd like to think its mid-production and will continue on schedule. I'm not sure if they will want to tone down X-Force. I heard Fox wanted X-Force to be PG-13, also that it cancelled the movie in anticipation of the merger (but that hasn't been confirmed). I understand the PG-13 Deadpool did pretty good.

No idea on what they'll do to these things. It sounds executive interference is a constant with Deadpool from the get-go, with all the players going through with these movies reluctantly and with a lot of internal fussing between the studio and Deadpool creators.

R-rated titles are an assault to marketings worldview that wider demographic exposure equals more $$$. The idea that Deadpool succeeds precisely because there is a huge adult demand for this sort of content not being catered to...that just doesn't seem to be pleasing to the studio. I think the people that market the movies have this philosophic conception that Marvel, as a "brand", means something incompatible with an R rating, and that its a prime case of "drift" that creates "brand confusion" that leads to a brand losing its value.

In other words, X-Force and Deadpool 3 may or may not happen, but its going to be pretty hard for Disney/Fox to just let it be left alone to do its own thing.

There's no way they are going forward with Franklin Richards. Its an obscure guy in the first place, to be introduced out of context. I don't know where in production it is, but Disney (and studios in general) is not afraid to pull the plug on things to get in line

[Rogar Demonblud]

New Mutants is 'done', but apparently needs a batch of reshoots which will be problematic since the cast has aged a bit since the primary photography was done over two years ago (at least one of the supporting actors has had a six-inch growth spurt, for example).

Gambit, X-Force and Franklin were really never more than names on a chalkboard. If memory serves, the middle one was the only one where they asked a scriptwriter for a pitch.

Deadpool 3 is in limbo, because Disney has announced they want to bring him into the MCU (duh, each of the films is about $50 million ahead of the next runner up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_R-rated_films)), but the MCU is resolutely PG-13 and the attempt at a PG-13 version of DP2 (allegedly, foisted on FOX by Disney as part of the negotiations) was...well, disappointing in terms of box office returns (the R versions would be 13 and 12 respectively on the MCU list).

Heck, the two Deadpool movies together grossed more than the three Wolverine movie did.

Of course, part of the issue is that nobody outside the industry actually knows what goes into the ratings labels. Disney has enough pull they could probably declare Deadpool PG-13 and nobody could really fight it.

[The Glyphstone]

You're only allowed a single F-bomb in a PG-13 movie. That's the only hard dividing line I know of aside from stuff involving explicit/sexual content. And it's probably got at least one exception anyways.

EDIT: It's got at least 10-15 notable exceptions, so never mind. Even that's not a guarantee anymore.

[Mordar]

I wonder how many people had my reaction to the trailer, which was "What, again?" We saw the plot in Last Stand, and Last Stand was terrible. Why would we want to go see the same plot again?

I'm willing to bet that more than anything else is why the movie opened so poorly. They tied themselves to a very bad movie, and people stayed away.

Because the plot (or at least the source plot) not only isn't bad...it's really good. Just like we've seen bad versions of (insert any of a number of Shakespeare stories here, for instance) that does't mean there isn't room for a good version. No, the Phoenix Saga isn't Shakespeare, but it is pretty highly valued for a ongoing comic storyline. As such, it might have had a chance.

But since they hadn't properly built Scott and Jean, hadn't properly prepared us for the Phoenix Saga, it had no shot. You can't suddenly have Wolverine and then Mystique as the faces of the franchise (because their actors are currently popular) and then tell a story that relies very heavily on investment in Scott and Jean as not only romantic leads but pillars of the team and expect it to have anywhere near the same impact.

The very lukewarm reception for the end of GoT and the relative dissatisfaction with Sophie Turner as Sansa (Personal note: I thought she did fine as Sansa, for the most part) meant it had zero star power, so I think that was an additional drag on opening weekend (along with Apocalypse hangover and X3 as you mention).

- M

[Rogar Demonblud]

Constantly rescheduling the release didn't help, and setting it to come after Disney-Marvel releases Captain Marvel and Avengers Endgame to suck all the air from the room wasn't smart either.

[Devonix]

Because the plot (or at least the source plot) not only isn't bad...it's really good. Just like we've seen bad versions of (insert any of a number of Shakespeare stories here, for instance) that does't mean there isn't room for a good version. No, the Phoenix Saga isn't Shakespeare, but it is pretty highly valued for a ongoing comic storyline. As such, it might have had a chance.

But since they hadn't properly built Scott and Jean, hadn't properly prepared us for the Phoenix Saga, it had no shot. You can't suddenly have Wolverine and then Mystique as the faces of the franchise (because their actors are currently popular) and then tell a story that relies very heavily on investment in Scott and Jean as not only romantic leads but pillars of the team and expect it to have anywhere near the same impact.

The very lukewarm reception for the end of GoT and the relative dissatisfaction with Sophie Turner as Sansa (Personal note: I thought she did fine as Sansa, for the most part) meant it had zero star power, so I think that was an additional drag on opening weekend (along with Apocalypse hangover and X3 as you mention).

- M

Dark Phoenix is a great comic book story, but the films keep missing what made it special. The specialness had nothing to do with Space stuff, and everything to do with Jean being a loveable but boring character, who is given power that corrupts her, It's the classic Good girl goes bad story. Complete with sexual awakening. Taking out that stuff is what really hurts the story.

[Mordar]

Dark Phoenix is a great comic book story, but the films keep missing what made it special. The specialness had nothing to do with Space stuff, and everything to do with Jean being a loveable but boring character, who is given power that corrupts her, It's the classic Good girl goes bad story. Complete with sexual awakening. Taking out that stuff is what really hurts the story.

...and don't forget the emotional impact of the resolution. Which is only emotional if we care about Scott and Jean. And Jean must make the choice too. No matter how it appears to no longer be palatable.

- M

[GloatingSwine]

Dark Phoenix is a great comic book story, but the films keep missing what made it special. The specialness had nothing to do with Space stuff, and everything to do with Jean being a loveable but boring character, who is given power that corrupts her, It's the classic Good girl goes bad story. Complete with sexual awakening. Taking out that stuff is what really hurts the story.

That, I think, is why it can’t be filmed.

Because the way to tell that story in a movie is closely inside the head of the character it’s happening to. Perfect Blue and Black Swan show how it works.

The emotional core of the story gets communicated by us living it with the character. It would have to be as close to Jean as Logan was to its protagonist. With as spare a presentation for everyone else.

But the Dark Phoenix story doesn’t adapt to that because it’s intended to sit in a series full of other characters and viewpoints.

So an adaptation that carried the core of Jean’s story would upset people who wanted everyone else.

[Rodin]

Because the plot (or at least the source plot) not only isn't bad...it's really good. Just like we've seen bad versions of (insert any of a number of Shakespeare stories here, for instance) that does't mean there isn't room for a good version. No, the Phoenix Saga isn't Shakespeare, but it is pretty highly valued for a ongoing comic storyline. As such, it might have had a chance.

But since they hadn't properly built Scott and Jean, hadn't properly prepared us for the Phoenix Saga, it had no shot. You can't suddenly have Wolverine and then Mystique as the faces of the franchise (because their actors are currently popular) and then tell a story that relies very heavily on investment in Scott and Jean as not only romantic leads but pillars of the team and expect it to have anywhere near the same impact.

The very lukewarm reception for the end of GoT and the relative dissatisfaction with Sophie Turner as Sansa (Personal note: I thought she did fine as Sansa, for the most part) meant it had zero star power, so I think that was an additional drag on opening weekend (along with Apocalypse hangover and X3 as you mention).

- M

Keep in mind that most people (even within the target demographic of people who like superhero stuff) likely haven't read the Phoenix Saga. Heck, given that the original comic came out in 1980, it's likely that a decent chunk of actual comic book readers haven't read it.

For movie-going audiences, the familiarity with Phoenix is entirely from Last Stand. Which was terrible. To make matters worse, it's a re-telling of the whole plot again. Superrhero movies do have a distressing tendency to re-tell origin stories over and over again, but they generally do try to vary it up. Especially these days, when attempts to do another re-hash of a story we all know is likely to fail (Fant-four-stic, anyone?).

I get why the studio and comic book fans would want to do the story. What I don't see is how they intended to overcome the awful taste left in the mouths of cinema viewers. They needed to build up a much higher reputation for quality before attempting this.

[GloatingSwine]

I get why the studio and comic book fans would want to do the story. What I don't see is how they intended to overcome the awful taste left in the mouths of cinema viewers. They needed to build up a much higher reputation for quality before attempting this.

I expect they were counting on everyone having forgotten Last Stand because it was 13 years ago.

The entire MCU has happened since and they expected people to just go see the latest superhero thing.

We live in a universe where Aquaman made a billion dollars for gods sake! Anything goes.

[Mordar]

That, I think, is why it can’t be filmed.

Because the way to tell that story in a movie is closely inside the head of the character it’s happening to. Perfect Blue and Black Swan show how it works.

The emotional core of the story gets communicated by us living it with the character. It would have to be as close to Jean as Logan was to its protagonist. With as spare a presentation for everyone else.

But the Dark Phoenix story doesn’t adapt to that because it’s intended to sit in a series full of other characters and viewpoints.

So an adaptation that carried the core of Jean’s story would upset people who wanted everyone else.

I don't think I get this. Shouldn't it be able to sit perfectly in a series full of other characters? That's how it worked in the original medium. That's why people cared about Jaime and Cersei (or Brienne), while caring about Jon and Daenerys, or any of the other characters/relationship storylines in GoT...or for that matter non-relationship storylines. Because we became invested in multiple characters over time, and then tumultuous things happened to some number of them and we were emotionally impacted. We were never impacted, though, by the characters with entire arcs completed in a single episode.


I get why the studio and comic book fans would want to do the story. What I don't see is how they intended to overcome the awful taste left in the mouths of cinema viewers. They needed to build up a much higher reputation for quality before attempting this.

I mostly agree, and would like to add "...and properly develop the key characters..." between "quality" and " before attempting this".

- M

[GloatingSwine]

I don't think I get this. Shouldn't it be able to sit perfectly in a series full of other characters? That's how it worked in the original medium. That's why people cared about Jaime and Cersei (or Brienne), while caring about Jon and Daenerys, or any of the other characters/relationship storylines in GoT...or for that matter non-relationship storylines. Because we became invested in multiple characters over time, and then tumultuous things happened to some number of them and we were emotionally impacted. We were never impacted, though, by the characters with entire arcs completed in a single episode.
- M

The original version of the story took place over fI’ve years of serialisation (between the original Phoenix story and the Dark Phoenix), and that in a denser medium than film because comics can pack much more information into a panel. (especially back in the ‘80s, when they were much more text heavy)

Likewise Game of Thrones is a hundred hours of television not two and change. (Though Breaking Bad would have been a better comparison, that’s still 50+ hours of storytelling)

Dark Phoenix can sit in a series of other characters, but not in a movie.

Logan worked because the existing series had put so much emphasis on Wolverine, the same was never done for Jean and she’s never really interesting enough to carry the focus of the series until she at least has the power of the Phoenix to deal with.

[Rogar Demonblud]

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Dark Phoenix could be done well. As the capstone of a multi-year/multi-film arc. You maybe wouldn't need to build it for a decade like the MCU did with Thanos, but you would need a lot of prep time for the ground work.

FOX just decided to skip the entirety of Phase 1 and Phase 2 and the bulk of Phase 3 to jump right to Infinity War and Endgame (which they then smashed into a single film).

[Devonix]

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Dark Phoenix could be done well. As the capstone of a multi-year/multi-film arc. You maybe wouldn't need to build it for a decade like the MCU did with Thanos, but you would need a lot of prep time for the ground work.

FOX just decided to skip the entirety of Phase 1 and Phase 2 and the bulk of Phase 3 to jump right to Infinity War and Endgame (which they then smashed into a single film).

There's also the fact that part of the Deal with Dark Phoenix was that Jean was retired. She'd stopped being a superhero and was living a normal life. She gets kidnapped and when they go to rescue her this crap happens.

What happens to Jean isn't her fault. So it's all tragic. And SHE's the one who decides enough is enough. She doesn't decide how Dark Phoenix starts, but she sure as hell decides how it ends. Not the Shiar who want to punish her as a monster, not the X-men who are trying to save their friend. She decides how she's going to die.

[Ramza00]

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Dark Phoenix could be done well. As the capstone of a multi-year/multi-film arc. You maybe wouldn't need to build it for a decade like the MCU did with Thanos, but you would need a lot of prep time for the ground work.

FOX just decided to skip the entirety of Phase 1 and Phase 2 and the bulk of Phase 3 to jump right to Infinity War and Endgame (which they then smashed into a single film).

That was not on the table + them doing Dark Phoenix at the same time.

With the first class reboot the main cast did a 3 movie contract and Dark Phoenix is the 4 movie and thus the actors did not have to return. It was only money, good will, etc that caused the original cast to return.

Telling The Dark Phoenix story over several movies after Apocalypse was not in the cards due to these financial reasons.

Thus maybe the best goal was to tell a different X-Men story and not trying to rush Dark Phoenix. It is the Icarus phenomenon just accept Dark Phoenix being told on screen is not going to happen, and if it does happen it will be ugly. Yet telling other X-Men stories could be satisfying.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It's not impossible. It would just require them to not spend the previous three movies going all over the place across decades of time with more characters than can be readily counted (and who thus get no development). If they'd run a sensible arc instead of X-Men's Greatest Hits, setting up DP would've been child's play. Instead, they made essentially three stand alone movies.

[Ramza00]

It's not impossible. It would just require them to not spend the previous three movies going all over the place across decades of time with more characters than can be readily counted (and who thus get no development). If they'd run a sensible arc instead of X-Men's Greatest Hits, setting up DP would've been child's play. Instead, they made essentially three stand alone movies.

Nods. But they didn't and the counterfactual of how to do it the MCU way did not exist at the time. Remember First Class was released prior to Avengers the first one, aka year 2011 vs year 2012.

Pretty much you can blame this on Bryan Singer for meandering with 2 of the 3 movies, somewhat well followed by kind of poorly.

While at the same time giving props to Kevin Feige and a dozen other people with the MCU for having a rough framework (and the contracts to make the framework possible) and then spontaneously creating good stuff on that framework and having each movie pivot into the next link of the chain.

My point here is to contrast these two different things for how the approach this is fundamentally different.