20th Century Fox's new X-Men movie Dark Phoenix has already flopped at the box office after just two weeks in theaters, with the director blaming himself for the movie's failure.
Simon Kinberg, who has worked as a writer and producer within the X-Men franchise since 2006 and made his feature directorial debut with Dark Phoenix, revealed in a new interview on the KCRW The Business podcast that the movie's critical and commercial failure is on him.
Not only did Dark Phoenix open with the lowest opening weekend in X-Men franchise history ($32.8 million) but it also was the most critically panned movie in the franchise, with just a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Blaming himself: 20th Century Fox's new X-Men movie Dark Phoenix has already flopped at the box office after just two weeks in theaters, with the director blaming himself for the movie's failure
'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,' the director said.
While many directors would be reticent to discuss a movie that failed just after it opened (plus dropping a staggering 71.5% in its second weekend), Kinberg said it's not going to 'kill him' to talk about it.
'It's not gonna kill me to talk about it, because I actually really like the movie, I had an amazing time making the movie,' he said.
Blame the director: '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,' the director said
The movie was originally supposed to open in November 2018, before being pushed to February 2019 and ultimately to its opening date on June 7.
While that seems like the perfect date for most superhero movies, Kinberg said this 'wasn’t made as a classic superhero
