This June will mark one year since Fox released Dark Phoenix, and the response to the film hasn’t gotten any more flattering. Writer and director Simon Kinberg memorably took responsibility for Dark Phoenix’s failures after it hit theaters. However, it turns out that The New Mutants director Josh Boone has some thoughts of his own.
The New Mutants was recently postponed indefinitely due to fears surrounding the novel coronavirus. But according to Boone, sitting on its release until long after Dark Phoenix’s mushroom cloud dissipated was the right call.
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“Look, you can only go up after Dark Phoenix,” Boone told Empire (via CBR). “That’s not to say anything bad about the people involved, but it was what it was. Honestly, I feel less pressure now than I did ahead of [the first slated release date]. Because we’ve tested our movie so many times, and audiences have loved it.“
It might sound jarring to hear Boone speaking ill of the last film in the franchise he’s currently involved with. Regardless, it seems unlikely that anyone (not even the recently rebranded 20th Century Studios) is going to take him to task for it. Plus, a newer X-Men director shading his predecessor isn’t exactly unheard of. In 2007, Matthew Vaughn slammed Brett Ratner’s directorial work on X-Men: The Last Stand, which he was previously attached to direct himself. Vaughn told The Telegraph that he could have made something “a hundred times better” than Ratner’s film. That was before Fox invited Vaughn back to helm X-Men: First Class.
What do you make of Josh Boone’s remarks about Dark Phoenix? Tell us what you think in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga
