It was just two days ago that 20th Century Fox finally released the first trailer for Dark Phoenix, the seventh of the main X-Men movies. With fans finally having some footage to chew on, the preview marked the countdown towards the movie's release in five months. Well, at least until today. Rather than coming out on February 14, Dark Phoenix has now been pushed to June 7, 2019, which was previously occupied by Gambit.
This is the second time that Dark Phoenix has been rescheduled. The movie was initially set for release on November 2 of this year back in April 2017, but due to reshoots, it was eventually pushed to February 14, 2019. Now because it's shifted to June 7, Dark Phoenix counts itself among the many of next year's summer blockbusters. Dark Phoenix's new release date was one of several Fox scheduling changes announced today. As for why Dark Phoenix is now setting up shop in June, Deadline speculates that it's because the studio believes it will perform better during the summer, especially in China, as the first trailer collected 44 million views in its first 24 hours this week out of that country. Dark Phoenix will also be able to play on more premium screens.
Dark Phoenix now finds itself going up against The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Flarsky as opening weekend competition. All three movies are targeted to vastly different audiences, and while Flarsky will likely take the bronze among this bunch, given how The Secret Life of Pets commercially performed, don't count out the sequel possibly cutting into Dark Phoenix's box office haul in a big way. Dark Phoenix also now finds itself sandwiched between two other notable blockbusters, as Godzilla: King of the Monsters is coming out the week prior and the Men in Black spinoff will arrive the week after. So yes, Dark Phoenix may feel more at home in the summer, but now it faces more of an uphill battle gathering those big bucks.
Taking place nine years after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, and marking the second time The Dark Phoenix Saga has been adapted for the big screen, Dark Phoenix is aiming to handle Jean Grey succumbing to the Phoenix Force better than X-Men: The Last Stand did. This time around, Jean's transformation is triggered after she is struck by a mysterious cosmic force while the X-Men are on a mission in outer space. With Jean spiraling out of control, it's up to the other mutant players to stop her and ensure that her powers aren't weaponized by aliens wanting to conquer the galaxy, though there are differing opinions among Professor X and Magneto's factions on how to handle this.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates concerning Dark Phoenix. In the meantime, you can look through our X-Men movies guide to learn what other mutant-centric cinematic projects are in development.
