“Dark Phoenix” Flopped At The Box Office This Weekend
If the X-Men’s Jean Grey was, indeed, a real person she would have predicted this early on and burned down every set and piece of equipment attached to the abysmal X-Men: Dark Phoenix film, because not only did it get shit reviews, it’s getting awful box office numbers too. The 12th X-Men movie, starring Sophie Turner (who was on some HBO show too, right?), has been making audiences cringe way before the movie premiered on Friday. Now that its opening weekend is coming to a close, the money that Dark Phoenix has brought in far is the equivalent of doing an eighty-hour work week and getting paid $100. In nickels.
First off, writing this makes my little nerd heart shatter into a million pieces, because much like Tyra Banks, I’m over here screaming, “I was rooting for you!!” Unfortunately I can either keep screaming or wipe away my tears and accept the reality. Dark Phoenix is currently bombing at the box office. It is bombing so hard that it’s making history as the WORST opening of all the films from the X-Men franchise. Variety reports that Dark Phoenix’s production budget was $200 million and on Friday, it brought in just $14 million at the domestic box office. It’s expected to bring in a whopping $33 million for the entire weekend. Deadline says that it’s not doing much better internationally.
The full launch session on the poorly reviewed Dark Phoenix will come in at the low end of pre-weekend projections, possibly around $115M for all offshore markets save Japan and Indonesia where it is still to bow in the coming weeks. That’s down on both Days Of Future Past ($148M in like-for-like markets at today’s rates) and Apocalypse ($134M).
Although reviews have been pretty bad I checked Twitter briefly (to avoid spoilers) and most people say the movie isn’t as abysmal as everyone claims. However those folks could have stumbled into the theater under the influence thinking they were watching the first post-Game of Thrones movie where Sansa Stark takes on Drogon’s powers and moves to New York City. Actually that sounds like a way better movie honestly.
Here’s the top 5 movies of the weekend:
- The Secret Life of Pets 2 – $47 million
- Dark Phoenix – $33 million
- Aladdin – $24.5 million
- Godzilla: King of Monsters – $15.5 million
- Rocketman – $14 million
Pic: 20th Century Fox