‘Dark Phoenix’ Director Reveals Why the Release Date Was Pushed Back

Last week, X-Men fans were finally able to get excited about the long-awaited Dark Phoenix movie, as Fox debuted the very first trailer ahead of its February 14, 2019 release date. However, the excitement quickly subsided just a day later, when it was announced that Dark Phoenix would be pushed back for a second time, going from February 14th to June 7th, taking the spot previously held by Gambit.

Given that the movie had already been pushed back from its original date in 2018, due to a period of reshoots, fans were understandably disappointed to learn that the wait would once again be extended. However, director Simon Kinberg has revealed that there are plenty of reasons not to worry.

While speaking to Collider, the filmmaker revealed that the date change is actually a good thing for Dark Phoenix, allowing more time for special effects to be finished, and appealing to a global audience.

“Some of the trailers had ‘Coming Soon’ on them and some of them said ‘February 14th,” Kinberg began. “It was a date, February 14th, that we initially liked for the movie but when we realized that we weren’t gonna have the visual effects ready to release it globally the way we wanted to, and the Gambit date opened up because it wasn’t gonna be ready for that June 7th date. We looked at that date versus the February 14th date, the studio did and we did, we felt like that June date was a bigger opportunity for us globally. More screens, more IMAX screens, a better chance to play in China where these movies have a massive following. What we found when we released the trailer was that 44, 45 million views of the trailer were in China alone… Specific for us, it is an opportunity to be a bigger movie day-and-date globally.”

The trailer itself had the February 14th date attached to it, and Kinberg notes that that was probably not the best idea.

“In terms of the trailer release,” he continued, “it certainly probably shouldn’t have said 2/14 on it, but the audience – and certainly I know this because I live online as much as anybody – people wanted to see something from the movie, and it was time to share something from the movie. So I would’ve still released a teaser when we released it, I just would’ve put ‘Coming Soon’ on the end of it or I would’ve put ‘June 7th’, though we hadn’t made that decision [at the time].”

Are you disappointed to see the release date for Dark Phoenix pushed back? Let us know in the comments!

Dark Phoenix is set to hit theaters on June 7, 2019.