Are seriously you’re arguing that good movies don’t flop at the box office? Secret Life of Pets 2, a sequel to a well-received film that made over 800 millions is doing half the numbers of its predecessor. Even Box Office experts are saying that the date matters.
Disney marketing campaign was at the very last minute and they didn’t have enough time to spread awareness. Deadline, the Hollywood Reporter, and Kinberg in the podcast said this.
Deadline’s report:
“This leads us to the mishap of Fox marketing. With the Disney-Fox merger looming, we understand they’ve been a mess, distracted, with a revolving door of execs. We heard this around the time that Alita came out, that the filmmakers were dealing with different people in different marketing meetings. Some folks inform us that ever since Marc Weinstock left Fox as the head of domestic marketing in November 2016 (he’s now over at Paramount), the studio has been challenged to event-ize their slate (i.e. War of the Planet of the Apes, Alita, Dark Phoenix, and even Widows, which played well with audiences. However, give credit where credit is due — Bohemian Rhapsody was a magnificent swan song for the studio).
I understand in meetings, some marketing execs didn’t even realize the release date changes on Dark Phoenix, and weren’t cognizant of the fact that the film was opening up against another franchise this weekend (i.e. Secret Life of Pets 2). Says one source, “They never brought it up in meetings that we were on the same date.” Another bashed the marketing materials: “Sophie Turner is a beautiful actress, and they never showed that in any of the marketing materials. Instead, they made her look like a zombie.”
Once the merger happened, there was little for Disney to do. Materials were already up at CinemaCon at the beginning of April days after the merger. We hear Disney tried to push Dark Phoenix through its vertical integration, i.e. Disney Channel, but they didn’t have enough time and were inheriting a film that already had bad buzz with its reshoots and release date changes.”
https://deadline.com/2019/06/dark-phoenix-bombs-at-the-box-office-reasons-why-1202629749/
Hollywood Reporter said that awareness for the film was lower than any other X-Men film and even Rocketman was more known about.
“At the time, preparations for the Disney-Fox acquisition were in full swing. Marketing and publicity and distribution execs were either being forced out or had one eye on the door. "The campaign was muddled," says a former Fox executive. "Was this the final X-Men movie? Was it about a character going back? This movie just got lost."
An NRG tracking poll taken in May showed that Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios' rival superhero franchise, was rated higher than Dark Phoenix as a choice for moviegoers — and that's after Endgame had been playing in theaters for five weeks already. "Definite awareness never got a score over 75 on tracking," says one insider. "An X-Men movie had never been below 90."
"When definite awareness of Rocketman is higher than an X-Men movie, you know you're in strange territory," says another insider.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/we-were-wrong-behind-dark-phoenix-foxs-dismal-x-men-franchise-finale-plans-1216859
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