A good leader is often someone that is willing to share success with their colleagues, while also taking the blame for when something goes wrong. And while we’ll never know how writer-director Simon Kinberg might have accepted acclaim for “Dark Phoenix,” it’s pretty admirable to see how he reacts to the film’s box office and critical failure.
Speaking on the KCRW show The Business, Kinberg was brutally honest about the film he just released. Despite its utterly disastrous reception. “Dark Phoenix” was poised to be the epic send-off for the Fox ‘X-Men’ franchise, allowing the man who produced a good number of films the chance to helm his first project, giving fans the best version of what is considered the greatest ‘X-Men’ story of all time. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. The film was hammered by bad reviews and the box office totals through 10 days are nothing short of appalling.
In fact, in its second weekend of release “Dark Phoenix” dropped -72.6%, which is a record high drop for a superhero film. Yes, even worse than “Batman v. Superman” or any other previous superhero “disasters.”
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But yet, Kinberg isn’t passing the buck.
“I actually really like the movie, [and] I had an amazing time making the movie,” said Kinberg about his recent film.
That being said, he’s not oblivious to what is happening with critics and fans, who are seemingly not happy with “Dark Phoenix.”
“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. So that’s on me,” Kinberg said.
“I’m here, I’m saying when a movie doesn’t work, put it on me,” the filmmaker added. “I’m the writer-director, the movie didn’t connect with audiences, that’s on me.”
Of course, as with many box office flops, news stories start to leak out about trouble on the set, issues with the studio, and marketing mishaps. And it would appear that “Dark Phoenix” likely had more of those than many films. However, even with the chance to blame the marketing of the superhero film, Kinberg, again, doesn’t take the easy way out.
“I mean honestly, there’s no way to know,” he said. “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.”
Ultimately, Kinberg will move on. He’s set to helm the Jessica Chastain-led film “355” next. Fox is now part of Disney, which means that the ‘X-Men’ franchise falls under Marvel Studios’ control, leading to a likely reboot in the future. So, while this wound is still fresh for the filmmaker, Kinberg and the ‘X-Men’ films will have at least one more shot.