Director Simon Kinberg has had a rough couple of weeks, his “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” has become the talk of Hollywood, but for all the wrong reasons. The film had a box-office debut of only $33 million, on an estimated $200 million production cost (and that’s before marketing), making it, easily, the lowest-grossing opening for any X-Men movie in the franchise’s 19 year history.
On Friday, Kinberg called KCRW’s “The Business” (via EW) to vent off his frustration a bit, and what we got was a humble and deeply personal interview from a man that blames himself for the movie’s failures. Kinberg admitted that “It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with audiences that didn’t see it, it didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it. So that’s on me.”
It wasn’t just movie audiences that decided to ignore or disapprove of the movie, film critics have also had their say as ‘Dark Phoenix’ currently holds a 23% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest rating of any X-Men movie ever. And yet, Kinberg holds the good memories intact, “I loved making the movie, and I loved the people I made the movie with,” he said.