X Men Dark Phoenix to register loss of ₹695 crore. Here’s what went wrong

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is projected to lose $100 million for Disney owned 20th Century Fox. That’s ₹695 crore. Deadline reports that the film cost Fox an estimated $350 million, including a round of expensive reshoots, and advertising expenses.

Dark Phoenix registered a franchise low opening of $33 million in the US, over its first weekend. But it made $104 million internationally, for a combined total of $140 million. This includes a subpar $45 million opening weekend in China, which should’ve been more because of a local holiday, and $2.3 million ( ₹16 crore) in India, where the film was up against Salman Khan’s Bharat.

While $140 million was enough for a number one opening, it was well below the opening weekend grosses of previous X-Men films such as X-Men: Days of Future Past ($262.9M), Logan ($247.4M) and X-Men: Apocalypse ($166.6M).

Deadline predicts that the film will conclude its run with $300-$325 million worldwide, or $285 million ‘if it drops like a stone’. The report offers theories as to why the film flopped, the biggest of which suggests that Fox lost faith in the film, which completed filming in 2017. Fearing that its finale was too focused on Jean Grey, the final act was completely reshot to include more characters.

Even though Dark Phoenix is the worst reviewed film of the X-Men franchise - it has a 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes - its predecessor wasn’t exactly beloved. X-Men: Dark Phoenix had a 47% score on RT. RelishMedia also theorises that X-Men fans had bid farewell to the characters in Apocalypse and the universally beloved Logan.

Then there’s the matter of Fox being sold to Disney, which opens up the possibility of the characters being introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is what fans are really waiting for, even if it means sitting out Dark Phoenix.

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