Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg blames himself for film's failures

17 June 2019

'Dark Phoenix' director Simon Kinberg says it's his fault the film didn't "connect with audiences".

Simon Kinberg

The latest 'X-Men' movie made its debut last weekend and pulled in just $33 million at the US box office against an estimated $200 million production cost, the superhero film also scored 23 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest ever rating for a film in the franchise.

The 45-year-old director wrote and helmed the movie - which followed Sophie Turner's Jean Grey as she's transformed into one of the world's most powerful and dangerous mutants - and he accepts that it's "on him" that the movie "didn't work".

Speaking on KCRW podcast The Business, he said: "I'm here and I'm saying when a movie doesn't work, put it on me. I'm the writer/director of the movie, the movie didn't connect with audiences, that's on me."

Despite the film's poor reception, the 'Deadpool' director insisted that he enjoyed making the movie, and referenced a conversation he'd previously had with Sir Ridley Scott in which he revealed that the much maligned 'G.I. Jane' - which was released in 1997 and starred Demi Moore as Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, a woman trying to make it in the US Navy - was his favourite film to work on, rather than his more acclaimed movies such as 'Alien', 'Gladiator' or 'Blade Runner'.

Kinberg - who he worked with Scott on the 2015 thriller 'The Martian' - explained: "He said it was his favourite because it was just a great process and he learned a lot on the process of making it. I've thought about that a lot over the years, and I thought about it a whole lot over the last weekend."

Kinberg added that he also received support from Tim Miller, with whom he worked on the first 'Deadpool' film, following the far from enthusiastic response to 'Dark Phoenix'.

He said: "He wrote me an email having empathy for a movie that doesn't work. People will come to see the movie differently, and out of the context of this particular moment, see things in it they will appreciate and that he appreciated as a fan."