X-Men: Dark Phoenix vs New Mutants — Race to the box office
Will X-Men: Dark Phoenix or New Mutants fair better at the box office?
On Friday, October 13, the first official trailer for New Mutants was released. Since X-Men: Dark: Phoenix and Deadpool 2 have finally wrapped production on October 14.
After the success of the original, Deadpool is a household name and many comic book fans and moviegoers have grown anticipation for the sequel. New Mutants is a 20th Century Fox property that showcases a lot of the obscure characters from the Marvel Universe.
Dark Phoenix, on the other hand, is a follow-up to X-Men: Apocalypse set during the 90s. Each film I mentioned have release dates months apart. While the New Mutants have a release of April 13, 2018, Dark Phoenix will be November 2, 2018. Here is a question I pose to all of you: which film out of these two will do better at the box office?
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Starting with New Mutants, helmed by a relatively unknown director named Josh Boone, the competition the film will have range between low-fi video game based film Rampage under New Line Cinema to sci-fi/adventure epics like Pacific Rim: Uprising and Ready Player One to early summer gargantuan franchises such as Avengers: Infinity War of an MCU fashion.
Fortunately, New Mutants has a full three-week threshold before Infinity War comes roaring. X-Men films outside the spin-offs average around $75 million for their opening weekend and the good thing it has on its side is from the marketing, it is leaning more towards quasi-supernatural and horror elements. This is something FOX/Marvel has not been able to explore in the mutant world.
However, the message it may carry will push fans of X-Men titles away, but also draw casual audiences into the pictures. Another problem is due to horror being a niche genre, it could falter under its own weight. Films of that genre draw an opening of under $20 million at least. If not handled right and if the campaign is not persuasive, it could divide the audience.
With Dark Phoenix this will undoubtedly be the truest test for Simon Kinberg to date. X-Men have been accused of being samey as of late. This film has the chance to take a trip away from Earth and travel into worlds of the creepy and otherworldly. There has not been a single film of this franchise that has dared to tackle subjects beyond its status quo. X-Men: Days of Future Past was a necessary bow that needed to be tied. How can revisiting the tale, ‘The Dark Phoenix Saga’, reinvigorate the franchise?
For a start, remaining true to the source material is a plus. We can do without a shot–for–shot adaptation, but close. Fans could not help but worry about the key term he said about the intergalactic elements in Total Film being ‘grounded’. A good theme they could tackle is what is the true meaning of humanity for mutants when thrust upon a civilization and hierarchy they do not understand? And how can anyone judge a being of a crime they are not in control of committing?
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Like the feature I started before, Kinberg is a safe choice to direct the project but not the best. Between a production that is taking more risks with audiences and an established series of films with recognizable and levity, I predict Dark Phoenix will make the most to a fault provided its opening weekend rolls in with more than $80 million. If it has any hope of beating Deadpool’s numbers, it has to be in excess of $120 million.