Dark Phoenix: Simon Kinberg takes full responsibility for the film’s performance

Simon Kinberg has accepted the blame for Dark Phoenix’s poor performance.

The response to Dark Phoenix, the final installment in Fox’s long-running X-Men film franchise, has been underwhelming. The film has performed poorly at the box office and has been panned by critics and fans alike. Simon Kinberg, who wrote, directed, and produced the film, is well aware of all of this, and he’s owning up to it.

Kinberg spoke about the film’s release and performance at length with KCRW’s The Business. While he believes the film would have performed better in a date that was further from Avengers: Endgame, he still says the film’s reception is on him:

"“I think also coming out five-six weeks after what will be the biggest or second biggest movie in the history of cinema that happens to also be in the genre of superheroes was tough for us…it was a tough weekend, but I wouldn’t blame it on the weekend.It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with audiences that didn’t see it, it didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it. So that’s on me.”"

Kinberg wishes things would have panned out differently, but he’s not harping on any “what ifs” regarding a different release date or marketing strategy:

"“I mean honestly, there’s no way to know. And that’s the thing that I think can drive people crazy and keep them up and be thinking about a movie’s failure years later. If the lesson you’ve learned is that you had the wrong date or you didn’t have good marketing–that’s not a lesson.”"

More from Movies

• James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy casts more major DC characters
• New Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom trailer pushes Arthur to his limits
• 7 actors who could replace Ezra Miller as The Flash in the DC Universe
• Masters of the Universe reboot’s new domain could be at Amazon’s Prime Video Streamer
• James Gunn gives interesting update of Superman and Supergirl movies at DC Studios

And despite everything, the writer-director is still proud of his film and enjoyed working on it:

"“I actually really like the movie, [and] I had an amazing time making the movie.”"

Dark Phoenix marked Kinberg’s first time in the director’s chair, but it was far from his first time being involved in the superhero genre or the X-Men franchise. Kinberg began his work with the franchise as a screenwriter on 2003’s X-2 and 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. The latter was his first attempt at adapting “The Dark Phoenix Saga” for the big screen. He has since served as a writer or producer on various other films in the series like X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Deadpool, and Logan.

With Kinberg being a first-time director, some expected his first feature his to have some flaws, and this definitely proved to be the case. But in fairness, the film was marred by problems that were out of his control. We’ll never know how the movie would have performed if things had been done differently. But at the very least, Kinberg seems to have learned from the experience.