After scoring the lowest opening weekend for any instalment in the franchise, Fox’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix has now set another unenviable record with the film suffering the biggest second weekend box office drop not just for an X-Men film, but for any superhero movie ever.
As reported by Forbes, Dark Phoenix earned $14 million on its opening day domestically, but was down a whopping 83.2% week on week with just $2.3 million from its second Friday. That puts it ahead of the previous worst Friday-to-Friday drop of 81% set by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016.
Overall, Dark Phoenix added just $9 million from North America in its second weekend (down 72.6%) while it finished up the weekend with a total of $204 million worldwide – a disastrous result given that Fox is said to have pumped over $350 million into the film’s production, reshoots and marketing.
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This is the story of one of the X-Men’s most beloved characters, Jean Grey, as she evolves into the iconic DARK PHOENIX. During a life-threatening rescue mission in space, Jean is hit by a cosmic force that transforms her into one of the most powerful mutants of all. Wrestling with this increasingly unstable power as well as her own personal demons, Jean spirals out of control, tearing the X-Men family apart and threatening to destroy the very fabric of our planet. The film is the most intense and emotional X-Men movie ever made. It is the culmination of 20 years of X-Men movies, as the family of mutants that we’ve come to know and love must face their most devastating enemy yet — one of their own.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix sees Simon Kinberg directing a cast that includes franchise veterans Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Professor X), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) alongside new additions Kota Eberhardt (The Persian Connection) as Selene, Andrew Stehlin (Hacksaw Ridge) as Red Lotus, and Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game) and Lamar Johnson (Kings).
Originally published June 17, 2019. Updated June 18, 2019.
