The X-Men are back in the explosive first trailer for 'Dark Phoenix;' Fox pushes film back to June 2019 amid major release shake-up
The X-Men franchise is in a very strange spot right now, and it's not exactly anyone's fault. While the Deadpool films and James Mangold's Logan enjoyed great critical and financial success, the main series lost its way a bit in recent years. After the peak of 2014's Days of Future Past, things fell apart entirely with 2016's Apocalypse, which was something of an unmitigated disaster on every level. Producer Simon Kinberg is stepping behind the camera for Dark Phoenix, but many have speculated that it won't even be released. After all, Marvel and 20th Century Fox should be joining forces in the near future, so why not just cancel the previous universe and allow Kevin Feige to reboot things? Despite the insistence of the internet's crazy fan theories, it appears that Dark Phoenix will indeed be released (though not quite when we thought- more on that later). Early Thursday morning, Fox debuted the first trailer for the fourth chapter in this timeline of the X-verse- watch it below!
This is a decent trailer, but I can't say if that'll translate into a genuinely good movie. I mean, I want to give Dark Phoenix the benefit of the doubt. I love First Class and Days of Future Past, and I love seeing James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence in this world. But the last one was such a mess, and all signs are pointing to this being a catastrophe.
I should mention that Fox just changed the film's date. Yeah, so roughly 36 hours after unleashing this first look on the world, the studio revealed that Dark Phoenix will now open on June 7 instead of February 14. Remember, this film was originally supposed to hit theaters on November 2 of this year. We rarely see blockbusters, especially ones that have actually been filmed, receive this kind of repeated delay.
In my mind, this goes one of two ways. In the optimistic scenario, the shift to June is a show of confidence on Fox's behalf, resulting in a high quality film that goes toe-to-toe with the biggest films on Summer 2019's extremely busy slate. In the negative scenario, Fox is hoping they can bury it in the busiest season of the year, while moviegoers are occupied with bigger, more anticipated releases. Judging by the trailer, I really think it could go either way.
Normally, this would be the end of any trailer post. Not this time- now we have to circle back to the release calendar.
As I mentioned before, Dark Phoenix is opening in June. With that empty slot on the February calendar, Fox has shifted Robert Rodriguez's Alita: Battle Angel from December 21 to February 14. This is another tough sell now facing its second delay, and I'm not remotely surprised to see it leave the crowded holiday season, where it certainly would have been annihilated. Instead, Fox is releasing an untitled Deadpool movie as their big holiday release. Everyone online got really excited for a moment yesterday, but then Deadline revealed that it's just a PG-13 recut with some kind of Christmas framework. Lame.
Meanwhile, Fox also punted Gambit once again, shifting it from June 7 of next year to March 13, 2020. Still no director, so we'll see if that even gets off the ground. Earlier this week, Fox also announced that Matthew Vaughn's third Kingsman movie will be arriving on November 8, 2019, taking the spot where James Bond 25 used to be.
As I browsed Box Office Mojo's list of release changes, I noticed a number of additional adjustments worth nothing that I had missed. For the sake of concision, I'll be breaking them down here in list form:
-Warner Bros. has set the Untitled Birds of Prey Project for February 7, 2020. The Cathy Yan-directed project just added Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jurnee Smollett-Bell to its cast, which is led by Margot Robbie.
-Lionsgate is shifting Hellboy from January 2019 to April 12, 2019. The David Harbour-led feature will face off against Breakthrough and The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle.
-How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is moving up a week, now set for February 22, 2019.
-As I mentioned in my last article, Clint Eastwood's The Mule and Jennifer Lopez's Second Act will both open on December 14, 2018.
-Aviron appears to be giving up on Steven Knight's Serenity, which was set for release on October 19. It's now heading for the doldrums of early January, specifically January 25, 2019.
-Finally, in the indie world, Brady Corbet's Vox Lux is arriving on December 7, 2018, while Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows will premiere on February 8, 2019. On the Basis of Sex and Vice will both go wide on Christmas Day.
That's all for now- come back for more reviews soon.
Poster courtesy of Fox
This is a decent trailer, but I can't say if that'll translate into a genuinely good movie. I mean, I want to give Dark Phoenix the benefit of the doubt. I love First Class and Days of Future Past, and I love seeing James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence in this world. But the last one was such a mess, and all signs are pointing to this being a catastrophe.
I should mention that Fox just changed the film's date. Yeah, so roughly 36 hours after unleashing this first look on the world, the studio revealed that Dark Phoenix will now open on June 7 instead of February 14. Remember, this film was originally supposed to hit theaters on November 2 of this year. We rarely see blockbusters, especially ones that have actually been filmed, receive this kind of repeated delay.
In my mind, this goes one of two ways. In the optimistic scenario, the shift to June is a show of confidence on Fox's behalf, resulting in a high quality film that goes toe-to-toe with the biggest films on Summer 2019's extremely busy slate. In the negative scenario, Fox is hoping they can bury it in the busiest season of the year, while moviegoers are occupied with bigger, more anticipated releases. Judging by the trailer, I really think it could go either way.
Normally, this would be the end of any trailer post. Not this time- now we have to circle back to the release calendar.
As I mentioned before, Dark Phoenix is opening in June. With that empty slot on the February calendar, Fox has shifted Robert Rodriguez's Alita: Battle Angel from December 21 to February 14. This is another tough sell now facing its second delay, and I'm not remotely surprised to see it leave the crowded holiday season, where it certainly would have been annihilated. Instead, Fox is releasing an untitled Deadpool movie as their big holiday release. Everyone online got really excited for a moment yesterday, but then Deadline revealed that it's just a PG-13 recut with some kind of Christmas framework. Lame.
Meanwhile, Fox also punted Gambit once again, shifting it from June 7 of next year to March 13, 2020. Still no director, so we'll see if that even gets off the ground. Earlier this week, Fox also announced that Matthew Vaughn's third Kingsman movie will be arriving on November 8, 2019, taking the spot where James Bond 25 used to be.
As I browsed Box Office Mojo's list of release changes, I noticed a number of additional adjustments worth nothing that I had missed. For the sake of concision, I'll be breaking them down here in list form:
-Warner Bros. has set the Untitled Birds of Prey Project for February 7, 2020. The Cathy Yan-directed project just added Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jurnee Smollett-Bell to its cast, which is led by Margot Robbie.
-Lionsgate is shifting Hellboy from January 2019 to April 12, 2019. The David Harbour-led feature will face off against Breakthrough and The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle.
-How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is moving up a week, now set for February 22, 2019.
-As I mentioned in my last article, Clint Eastwood's The Mule and Jennifer Lopez's Second Act will both open on December 14, 2018.
-Aviron appears to be giving up on Steven Knight's Serenity, which was set for release on October 19. It's now heading for the doldrums of early January, specifically January 25, 2019.
-Finally, in the indie world, Brady Corbet's Vox Lux is arriving on December 7, 2018, while Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows will premiere on February 8, 2019. On the Basis of Sex and Vice will both go wide on Christmas Day.
That's all for now- come back for more reviews soon.
Poster courtesy of Fox
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