2019 Box Office Busts

[Midvillian1322]

Speaking of the marketing, it was incredibly misleading. It was advertised as an action packed packed summer blockbuster about Jean becoming the X-Men’s greatest threat and a grand finale. When really it was made to be a family soap opera about Jean embarking on a hero’s journey instead of becoming a villain. Nor wasn’t it planned as a series finale, it’s prequel after all. False advertisement hurts word of mouth and to some extent critical reception.

Yea, bottom line sure but better marketing wouldnt have changed that people didnt like the movie. Better marketing woulda got me to pay to watch it in theaters instead of the Avenues I used. But I think Apoclypse killed the momentum for me and I kinda just wanted it to be done and tried again in a few years. Everything felt like a retread to me. So maybe I didnt give this movie a fair shake but if it was a good movie it woulda overcome that.

[Divine Spark]

Yea, bottom line sure but better marketing wouldnt have changed that people didnt like the movie. Better marketing woulda got me to pay to watch it in theaters instead of the Avenues I used. But I think Apoclypse killed the momentum for me and I kinda just wanted it to be done and tried again in a few years. Everything felt like a retread to me. So maybe I didnt give this movie a fair shake but if it was a good movie it woulda overcome that.

I’ve read over a hundred reviews since opening day and many people did judged it on the expectations set by it’s misleading marketing rather than its own merits. Seen people such as Screen Junkies and WatchMojos complaining about the movie not committing to have Jean become evil and things of that nature. Even WatchMojos said “the tagline says every hero has a dark side but we never really see it”.

Though I don’t think the movie is good because it’s second act that is 10 minutes and you can tell that parts were missing, but expectations made its reception significantly worse.

[Colossus1980]

A fact that weeks ago a lot of us mentioned that there was issues with marketing and now this article brings up Disney itself hurt it.

Honestly this article makes Disney look foolish in ways. They hurt the marketing of a big film that could have helped their bottom line (which they are harping about now)

I'm guessing that Disney knew DP was going to bomb big time so they decided to clamp down on marketing expenses and let DP go quietly into the night. Whatever they lost now will probably save them later on when they relaunch the X-Men years down the road. How much more could this movie have had made? Another 20M? 30M? I think 50M+ is a pipe dream. No better let the public forget this movie dud and save whatever they can of the X-Men reputation.

[Divine Spark]

I'm guessing that Disney knew DP was going to bomb big time so they decided to clamp down on marketing expenses and let DP go quietly into the night. Whatever they lost now will probably save them later on when they relaunch the X-Men years down the road. How much more could this movie have had made? Another 20M? 30M? I think 50M+ is a pipe dream. No better let the public forget this movie dud and save whatever they can of the X-Men reputation.

The awareness rate for the movie was significantly below any other X-film.

"Definite awareness never got a score over 75 on tracking," says one insider. "An X-Men movie had never been below 90."

"When definite awareness of Rocketman is higher than an X-Men movie, you know you're in strange territory," says another insider.

The movie being such a bomb actually causes more people to become aware of it and Disney does seem to be putting some effort in the home media release.

[Theleviathan]

People didn't care. Spending money on the bleak hope of making money is the kind of foolish decision Disney avoids. And they did.

[Divine Spark]

People didn't care. Spending money on the bleak hope of making money is the kind of foolish decision Disney avoids. And they did.

Disney knew that the movie would get buried by the summer competition(the filmmakers begged Fox not to put it there). They seem to be spending good money on the home release.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/xmenmovi...=page_internal

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I'm guessing that Disney knew DP was going to bomb big time so they decided to clamp down on marketing expenses and let DP go quietly into the night. Whatever they lost now will probably save them later on when they relaunch the X-Men years down the road. How much more could this movie have had made? Another 20M? 30M? I think 50M+ is a pipe dream. No better let the public forget this movie dud and save whatever they can of the X-Men reputation.

Disney originally according to an article projected the film to do $100+ million domestically. That was just domestically. Also its silly for Disney to tell people now how Dark Phoenix under-performed and then comically sabotaged the films advertising earlier. I mean Disney can't have it both ways here , you can't complain about a film not performing well and yet hurt the aspect for the film to try and make money.

Also its silly to now say you don't believe New Mutants will make money and yet comically approve reshoots costing millions to do a release . At this point its like Disney has 2 factions right now.

[Jokerz79]

There's no mystery Dark Phoenix was a lackluster bad movie and hence it failed.

[Divine Spark]

There's no mystery Dark Phoenix was a lackluster bad movie and hence it failed.

I certainly wouldn’t call it good, but much of the arguments for why it’s objectively bad are not exactly valid. Like I said, plenty of people judged that movie based on its misleading marketing campaign rather than its own merit. Example from two reviews:

Complaint that Jean doesn’t become Dark Phoenix.

And so, the Dark Phoenix is born — well, not really. She never does anything too bad: Mystique’s death is clearly an accident, and she never really joins up with the baddies ideologically either, which at least The Last Stand made efforts at selling.

Complaint that Jean does become Dark Phoenix(obviously just confirmation bias talking).

Sophie Turner's Jean Grey goes through the exact same motions as Famke Janssen in the 2006 movie — she grapples with her newfound and unchecked power, kills people she loves, realizes that she's a monster and arrives at a bittersweet character resolution.

It’s either one or the other. Both of these can not be true.

[jetengine]

I certainly wouldn’t call it good, but much of the arguments for why it’s objectively bad are not exactly valid. Like I said, plenty of people judged that movie based on its misleading marketing campaign rather than its own merit. Example from two reviews:

Complaint that Jean doesn’t become Dark Phoenix.



Complaint that Jean does become Dark Phoenix(obviously just confirmation bias talking).



It’s either one or the other. Both of these can not be true.

Except they can both be true because reviews are based off of someone watching a movie and their interpretation.

[Divine Spark]

Except they can both be true because reviews are based off of someone watching a movie and their interpretation.

They are trying to give a plot summary and that is not based on interpretation but the events that transpired in the film. You either have an accurate plot summary or you don’t.

[Scott Taylor]

The awareness rate for the movie was significantly below any other X-film.



The movie being such a bomb actually causes more people to become aware of it and Disney does seem to be putting some effort in the home media release.

This makes sense. I barely saw marketing for the movie at all and the trailer's weren't very compelling. Disney absolutely mailed it in, short-timer mode on the Fox X-Men franchise.

Also I really think the criticism of the movie make it seem like many of the folks writing them didn't actually see the movie. Or if they did, they were sleeping or drunk.

[Theleviathan]

I don't think these elaborate efforts are necessary. People were done with the franchise, Disney read the tea leaves, and determined Phoenix was a sunk cost.

It was. They followed the old adage of not chasing bad money with good money. It's as simple as that really. Even if Phoenix had been a really good movie I think it was a sunk cost from nearly day 1, Disney or not.

[Divine Spark]

Also I really think the criticism of the movie make it seem like many of the folks writing them didn't actually see the movie. Or if they did, they were sleeping or drunk.

I definitely see where a lot of the critics were coming from. Several of them think that Jean’s story is handicapped by the film’s short runtime and/or that it should have been two movies, which it originally was planned to be. That and the movie only has a few moments of levity. Some critics were upset that the movie was tonally different from what it was marketed to be.

But yeah, a lot of the critics misread the movie and that is due to confirmation bias. For two years they were under the belief that it was too soon to have Jean evil be again or was against doing it all. So when the movie ended doing the complete opposite of that and not have Jean be evil their minds played tricks on themselves to maintain their deeply entrenched-beliefs. It happens to the best of us.

[stargazer01]

I find it interesting that Dark Phoenix bombed so hard. I think the previous movie hurt it. People just weren't very interested or invested in this universe. All the bts drama too. Poor marketing as well?

Compare it to the DCEU movies like BvS, SS and JL (these movies were also controversial and divisive), but only JL lost money, but it still did $600 + millions worldwide.