X-Men: Dark Phoenix (June 7, 2019) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Simon Kinberg feels like a step down from the caliber of previous directors (even if one of those previous directors is a flake at best, and a sexual predator at worst).

It turns out that the cast is the reason we have him as director. They approached him about it after Apocalypse, and Jennifer Lawrence, in particular, refused to return unless he directed.

Interview with Kinberg here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/h...er-lawrence-was-ready-walk-away-role-1214723?

We'll see if their insistence he should direct was a good idea or not in about a week.

 

[AshJW]

Is anyone here genuinely really excited to see it? This is a serious question. I know some of you will see it because you've seen all the others and want to finish the series, but is it really exciting anybody?

I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m more excited than with Apocalypse, which doesn’t say much I guess.

 

[Sam Favate]

I was planning to see it with my kids, but given a limited amount of time, they'd rather see Secret Life of Pets 2. So then I was planning to see it by myself, but events have conspired against me and it doesn't look like I will have time Friday-Sunday, so I may have to catch a matinee somewhere down the road.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I was planning to see it with my kids, but given a limited amount of time, they'd rather see Secret Life of Pets 2.

I suspect that will be the choice for a lot of families, and Dark Phoenix will suffer for opening against it. I'm not a fan of Illumination personally, but there is no question that Pets is in a much better place in terms of moviegoer interest coming off of the largely well-liked and extremely successful original movie than X-Men is coming off of Apocalypse.

Pets 2 will open huge. Of course, unlike most summers, it is the first big animated film out of the gate and consequently only has two weeks before Toy Story 4. Normally Pixar goes first and Illumination follows once the Pixar title has cooled off a bit. We'll see how it holds up now that those positions are reversed. In either case, it's clearly going to be the bigger film versus Dark Phoenix.

 

[Robert Crawford]

TBH, Secret Life of Pets 2 is more suitable of a kids movie for young children than Dark Phoenix is any way. Also, the film is less than 90 minutes long while we know Dark Phoenix with more violence will be about 2 hours long.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Is anyone here genuinely really excited to see it? This is a serious question. I know some of you will see it because you've seen all the others and want to finish the series, but is it really exciting anybody?

I’m going to see it, but at this moment I don’t have any plans in place, don’t have any advanced tickets and I’m not excited about it.

I’m looking at this as something that that just shouldn’t be, but is. And its existence is going to take away from the the X-Men story options that Marvel will do in the future. The Dark Phoenix Saga is just that, a SAGA. It’s a story that should be built up over multiple chapters. That’s something Marvel Studios could have done over the course of multiple films, like what they did with Infinity War and Endgame. Instead we get the terrible Last Stand version and and the “jury’s undecided” condensed second version here. However it turns out, I just don’t see Marvel doing the story again. And that just feels wrong.

I’m hoping that it is good, because ultimately a good/decent version of Phoenix is probably less damaging to the story concept than another bad version. But either way, I feel a lot of frustration with this movie existing at all.

 

[Josh Dial]

I'm looking forward to the movie!

As I wrote earlier in the thread, Jean is my second favourite Marvel comics character (after Thanos). Also, I am absolutely unaffected by the so-called "Marvel movie fatigue." I watch every film and every TV series (even, unfortunately, The Inhumans).

That said, I'm more looking forward to seeing what happens to Jean and the rest of the X-Men under the Feige regime.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I am absolutely unaffected by the so-called "Marvel movie fatigue." I watch every film and every TV series (even, unfortunately, The Inhumans).

I'm glad you're excited but for me it's not Marvel movie fatigue at all, but X-Men fatigue, specifically, because the series itself seems to have run out of creative juice after Days of Future Past. Apocalypse was just terrible and as others have noted squandered all the good will built up from the previous two excellent entries with this cast. Now they're literally retreading ground they already did badly once before, with the same writer, whose reward is that he now gets to direct too. The fact that the cast likes him doesn't mean he didn't screw up this story the last time he wrote it. So...yeah. I'm curious to see the reviews -- if they're great, I might be convinced -- but I'm not currently planning on it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I don’t even think Days Of Future Past was as good as the general consensus. Matthew Vaughn brought much needed energy to First Class, and I don’t think the franchise recovered creatively from his too-soon departure.

On paper, Apocalypse was a good bet. Bryan Singer back in the director’s chair, reunited with the writers who scripted X2: X-Men United. It just didn’t work out.

 

[Malcolm R]

The Last Stand and Apocalypse may have been viewed as creative disappointments, but they remain two of the top three grossing films worldwide in the ensemble X-Men series. The only film that's done better at the box office is Days of Future Past.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The Last Stand and Apocalypse may have been viewed as creative disappointments, but they remain two of the top three grossing films worldwide in the ensemble X-Men series.

You are absolutely correct, but just because they made money doesn't mean they were actually well-liked. Alice in Wonderland made a bunch of money but wasn't well-liked, so the sequel was a bomb because no one wanted it. Just because people went to see Apocalypse does not necessarily portend success for Dark Phoenix, since the lack of audience goodwill may catch up with it now. There seems to be a curve on these things that's relative to how the last installment did. Days of Future Past being good was enough to get me in the theater for Apocalypse, but Apocalypse being bad is making me think twice before Dark Phoenix.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The Last Stand and Apocalypse may have been viewed as creative disappointments, but they remain two of the top three grossing films worldwide in the ensemble X-Men series. The only film that's done better at the box office is Days of Future Past.

All three of those movies directly followed movies that were creative successes: X2, Days of Future Past, and First Class.

Dark Phoenix follows Apocalypse, which was not a creative success.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Best news about DARK PHOENIX: Run time of 114 minutes. If it's bad it's bad, but it'll be a half hour shorter than the last two.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Do we really know this version of Jean well enough to invest in this story at this point in time?

This feels like if they tried to do Logan by itself without the weight of including the previous X-Men films with Wolverine behind it. That movie worked because it was an ending for a character we had come to know and care about over 17 years. If you saw just Logan, without the other X-Men/Wolverine films, the plot might make sense since it's a fairly simple story, but the emotional resonance wouldn't be there. Or if they had just done Logan in 2000, certainly the impact would not be the same, even if everything about the movie was the same otherwise.

We've known Jean since 2000 as well, but for most of that time, she was Famke Janssen [edited to fix spelling], and we've already seen Janssen go through this story. Sophie Turner's version was introduced in Apocalypse, which was relatively recent and wasn't good. So the investment factor seems to be way less.

To be clear, I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for the reviews to be outstanding, and for those of you who are going to come back and report that they got this right and that it really is something special and that it's unmissable. If that were to be the case, I would certainly go. This iteration of the X-Men absolutely deserves a great sendoff and I would like it very much if they have one. It just doesn't seem, from what we've seen so far, that this particular movie is necessarily hitting that mark.

Also, it looks like this will be the first X-Men franchise title that does not open in first place at the box office, as I fully expect The Secret Life of Pets 2 to open higher.

 

[JimmyO]

Frankie Jensen

Famke Janssen

 

[Jake Lipson]

Famke Janssen

Yes, you're right. Autocorrect. Fixed. Thanks.

(The rest of the points in my post above stand, though.)

 

[JimmyO]

Yes, you're right. Autocorrect.

No surprise there. It's a pretty uncommon name. Unless you're Dutch, I suppose!

 

[Jake Lipson]

Sidebar, but what has Janssen been doing lately? Her last film credit on Box Office Mojo was Taken 3, which is four years ago. and before that her cameos in Days of Future Past and The Wolverine. I know she's been on a handful of episodes of How to Get Away with Murder, but not as a regular so she must have been doing something else.

 

[David Weicker]

Sidebar, but what has Janssen been doing lately? Her last film credit on Box Office Mojo was Taken 3, which is four years ago. and before that her cameos in Days of Future Past and The Wolverine. I know she's been on a handful of episodes of How to Get Away with Murder, but not as a regular so she must have been doing something else.

She was one of the leads in The Blacklist spin-off Redemption (2017), but that only lasted a season.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Screen Junkies did a recap video for the previous X-Men films which is a helpful refresh if you don't have time to rewatch them all before Dark Phoenix: