X-Men: Dark Phoenix bombs at box office with just $14 million splashing cold water on Sophie Turners lead role
X-Men: Dark Phoenix has suffered a disastrous opening at the box office, grossing just $14 million (£11 million) despite costing an eye-watering $200 million (£157 million) to make.
The Simon Kinberg-directed blockbuster stars Sophie Turner in the lead as Jean Grey, alongside James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto and Jennifer Lawrence as Raven aka Mystique.
But it seems the star-studded cast wasnt enough to save Dark Phoenix as it has suffered the worst opening in the history of X-Men movies.
According to Variety, Dark Phoenix grossed a modest $14 million in the US on Friday and is expected to take around $34 million across its opening weekend.
The numbers will no doubt be a huge disappointment to the movie studio, Twentieth Century Fox, who ploughed a $200 million budget into the film.
The latest in the long-running X-Men franchise hasnt fared well with critics as it has an abysmal 20% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Its even more of a blow that Dark Phoenix comes behind The Secret Life of Pets 2, which is expected to close the weekend at number one with a healthy $46.1 million.
Dark Phoenix follows Jean Grey as she begins to develop super powers that eventually corrupt her and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Its down to the trusty crew of X-Men to decide if Jeans life is worth saving more than the rest of the world.
Director Simon recently revealed the biggest challenges of bringing Jeans story to life in Dark Phoenix, and told Metro.co.uk: But the trickiest thing for me, bringing this to screen, was to tell the most intimate, emotional, character-driven version of this story really centre it on Jean and make sure I was doing her full justice.
The filmmaker continued: I had lunch [with Sophie] six or nine months before the movie started, and laid out what the story of the film would be.
More: Jennifer Lawrence
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I said “look youll have to go really dark places. I want to play it in the most realistic, raw, intense, emotional way and so youll have to go to these intense raw emotional places – and youll be doing it facing off with the Read More – Source
