Dark Phoenix flops early into its box office run

Dark Phoenix made its box office debut, and it finished out the weekend with a disappointing total.

The opening weekend numbers for Dark Phoenix are in. These numbers, compared to other X-Men franchise titles, are spelling flop. So how bad is the damage, and is there any hope?

The estimates were as high as $39.2 million. Although, Fox was optimistic with an opening estimate between $40 million and $50 million. Unfortunately, all estimates proved to be wrong. Instead, Dark Phoenix took in $32.8 million this past weekend. This is the weakest opening in the entire X-Men franchise, for both the original and current series. Hence, it is hard not to shout out flop from the top of the mountains. On average, the current X-Men series has a multiplier of 2.5. Take this, apply it to Dark Phoenix and you get a domestic box office total of $82 million. It does not even break into the hundred millions.

Estimates have an opening foreign weekend of $103.7 million, which is the one shred of good news. It manages to out-gross other titles such as X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Apocalypse in their opening international weekends. It comes as no surprise, with China being its biggest market, bringing in over $45 million.

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Can the international market save the film from being a flop, though? We can assume China can act as something of a saving, grace perhaps. On average, the current X-Men series has a foreign multiplier of 3.4. Therefore, Dark Phoenix should finish its foreign box office run with roughly $353 million. If these numbers come to fruition, they certainly are not the worst in the entire franchise.

Going off these estimates, we have a possible worldwide total of $435 million. There’s also the film’s $200 million production budget, but one must factor in other items, such as distribution costs, interests, dividends, marketing costs and more. Maybe, just maybe, it will at least break even, instead of going down as a complete flop.

Sadly, things are looking bleak, The film is receiving rotten reviews, as fans are hardly impressed. In the weeks to come, there will be releases, such as Men in Black International and Toy Story 4, and Both should do fine in dethroning this newest entry from its number two spot.