I wish they had followed Jean's actual history more closely. Yes, the Annie Richardson incident. It is so much better thematically than the movie's bastardized version. In the comics, young Jean's powers activate her TELEPATHY first(unless you think her TK took that frizbee into the street...), as she shares her friend's death. She should have died then and there, but she was able to stop both herself and Annie from passing over, just for a moment, and that alerted the Phoenix Force to her presence. You could have the spark of the Force unite with her even then(which would then explain what Jean did in Apocalypse).
But while the Force did save Jean from joining Annie in death, it was all too much for her anyways, and she's left comatose for a long time. Professor Grey, Jean's loving father, contacts his colleague Professor Xavier, to their home, where Charles is able to bring the young girl back to consciousness(in doing so, erecting some 'scaffolding' to suppress her TELEPATHY, not her memories, until she is older and better able to handle the thoughts of others). Already Jean has risen from the ashes of death, reborn. She remains with her mother and father(and sister), only occasionally working with Charles with her telekinesis until she actually moves to the school around 16 or 17(circa Apocalypse).
The version of her past in the movies(both here and X3) make Xavier out to be this horrible man(and her parents, or at least her father), when in the comics he really did bring her back to life essentially, and the worst thing he did was block her telepathy so she wouldn't go crazy at 11 years old or whatever. Kinberg has now twice botched a gorgeous Claremont backstory, despite it being handed to him on a silver platter(this, and Magneto's Anya story), with egregious, unnecessary changes.
Last edited by yogaflame; 06-15-2019 at 08:39 PM.
Let the flames destroy all but that which is pure and true!
In another universe, Jessica Chastain was casted as Black Swan in a buildup to Secret Wars. Was I the only person who believed Chastain would be good in that role? Shame she was wasted as an antagonist with a motive and barely any personality.
I'm sorry, let's stay on topic.
Dark Phoenix is trending for the largest second weekend drop since BvS[among big budget superhero films], with estimates of 83% being tossed around. By the end of the second weekend, it might barely pass the opening weekend box offices totals of previous franchise entries. Some are saying its domestic bo might not even make it to $75m in its entire theatrical run.
Let the flames destroy all but that which is pure and true!
Yeah, are multiple factors. Back when the second trailer came out Variety had an interview with a marketing exclusive explaining why the film didn’t have much early promotion.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...y-fox-freakoutThe situation has had longtime employees on the Fox lot suffering a kind of prolonged trauma since the merger was announced, in December 2017. To hear them tell it, they are being issued mostly vague, Orwellian-lite guidance that outlines dress codes and explains key-card access, but they have been left wanting in terms of business directives. In the middle of February, Fox’s marketing and distribution departments gathered with the filmmakers of Dark Phoenix, the latest X-Men installment from producer-director Simon Kinberg, to lay out their plans for the film’s June release. It was a typical meeting. Ad buys were discussed, and the publicity tour for the film’s stars, including Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jessica Chastain, was laid out. But it was still disconcerting, both because of all the new faces in the room—a handful of high-end consultants have been hired temporarily to fill the jobs recently vacated by long-term employees—and because of the ad hoc approach the Fox marketing team was taking toward the film’s release, four months away.
“We know when we are dropping a trailer, but we are nowhere near where we should be at this time,” said one marketing exec who was at the meeting. “It’s frightening. I would be mad if I were a filmmaker.”
“What’s not normal is the elephant in the room, which is that most people there are not going to be the people that are still in the job when the movie opens,” added another attendee.
“Nobody has come around and said, ‘This is what’s going on.’ Why can’t they just tell us that there is no place for us? Why can’t they let anyone know?” said the marketing exec. “We are not leaving because we didn’t make money for the company or we did a bad job. We are leaving because of pure capitalism.”
Kinberg confirmed this in a recent podcast. So the movie was under-promoted until after Disney bought Fox and the major push didn’t start until a month before its release.
And of course this movie was released at a bad time according Box Office experts like Deadline.
Except it isn’t in this case. Logan was pretty successful despite coming off Apocalypse, The Wolverine, and Origins. Wolverine appearance was one of Apocalypse was one of its main criticism.A note about reshoots: They’re completely normal on a superhero film of this size, and are routinely budgeted. Just because a superhero movie undergoes reshoots doesn’t mean that it’s destined to fail (i.e. Suicide Squad went from dark to funny in tone and dazzled with $746.8M). We hear that Dark Phoenix had even less reshoots than X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. And this is where we turn to Fox PR and marketing mismanaging the image and perception of Dark Phoenix. Word was leaked and not controlled about reshoots for Dark Phoenix and New Mutants, and when that isn’t managed, it already transmits a message to fans that something is afoul. The headlines on Star Wars: Rogue One‘s reshoots were less so than the public divorce of the studio from original Solo: A Star Wars Story directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and that resulted in the former being a profitable film and the other a stinker.
The odor on Dark Phoenix became more toxic after the studio pushed the film back again from Feb. 14 to June 7 — and this was two days after they dropped the second trailer, which screamed out the release date of Feb. 14! Not only did that confuse fans, but it really sent the message that Dark Phoenix could be a potential turd.
First off, the movie was never intended to be a summer film. Dark Phoenix is darker and more psychologically complex than other X-Men movies. It was always seen as an off-season release, and the original plan was to get out ahead of Captain Marvel (March 8) and be the first female-led Marvel movie.
Last edited by Divine Spark; 06-15-2019 at 10:39 PM.
Fox laid off much of their marketing department and then hired essentially temporary staffers. This isn't necessarily unusual. Studios will bring in people to run specific types of campaigns and there is considerable turnover. But this was essentially chaos at Fox with no one really running the campaign. Even before that, a lot of Fox's marketing department was leaving before they could be laid off.
Deadline has some details about what was going on:
https://deadline.com/2019/06/dark-ph...hy-1202629749/
This leads us to the mishap of Fox marketing. With the Disney-Fox merger looming, we understand they’ve been a mess, distracted, with a revolving door of execs. We heard this around the time that Alita came out, that the filmmakers were dealing with different people in different marketing meetings.
I understand in meetings, some marketing execs didn’t even realize the release date changes on Dark Phoenix, and weren’t cognizant of the fact that the film was opening up against another franchise this weekend (i.e. Secret Life of Pets 2).
Last edited by ClanAskani; 06-27-2019 at 11:23 AM.