The latest trailer for X-Men: Dark Phoenix showed off more footage of the upcoming film planned for a February 2019 release, but shortly after fans saw the new footage, that date was abruptly changed to June 2019. Now the director explains why Fox and the rest of the Dark Phoenix team pushed back the release date.
In an interview with Collider, Simon Kinberg says the change came about after some deliberation and outside circumstances.
"Some of the trailers had 'Coming Soon' on them and some of them said 'February 14th'. It was a date, Feb. 14th, that we initially liked for the movie but when we realized that we weren't gonna have the visual effects ready to release it globally the way we wanted to, and the Gambit date opened up because it wasn't gonna be ready for that June 7th date. We looked at that date versus the February 14th date, the studio did and we did, we felt like that June date was a bigger opportunity for us globally. More screens, more IMAX screens, a better chance to play in China where these movies have a massive following. What we found when we released the trailer was that 44, 45 million views of the trailer were in China alone… Specific for us, it is an opportunity to be a bigger movie day-and-date globally."
Kinberg admitted the trailer probably shouldn't have had the February date attached to it, but the June 7 move wasn't finalized at the time.
Numerous fan theories arose after the sudden release date change for Dark Phoenix, ranging from more reshoots to adding a connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that the X-Men movie property has reverted to Disney and Marvel Studios. However, Kinberg's comments suggest it was primarily a financial decision, one that makes sense considering Dark Phoenix may be the last in the franchise under Fox.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix will release June 7.
What do you think of the new release date for Dark Phoenix? Do you think the movie will be any good? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Phillip Martinez is a game and culture reporter for Newsweek. Prior to joining Newsweek in 2018, he was a reporter ... Read more
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