Dark Phoenix Is First X-Men Movie to Not Open #1 at Box Office

Even though poor reviews for Dark Phoenix started flooding the internet earlier in the week, the film was still expected to take home to top spot in theaters this weekend. After all, it was only going against The Secret Life of Pets 2, Godzilla: King of the Monsters in its second week, and Disney's Aladdin in its third week. Fast forward a few days and Dark Phoenix has come in well under industry expectations, losing the box office to Universal's Secret Life of Pets sequel.

It's the first time in the history of Fox's franchise that one of the X-Men films has not finished in the top spot its opening, including films such as X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In fact, it's just one of few superhero movies to ever not get the top spot in their debut weekend.

Other major superhero films — featuring either Marvel or DC-based characters — to not finish first in its opening weekend include Fantastic Four (2015), Blade: Trinity, The Punisher, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Catwoman, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Elektra, Jonah Hex, and Punisher: War Zone.

As it stands now, the movie is expected to gross $33 million this weekend, behind The Secret Life of Pets 2's $47m. The top five this weekend is rounded out by Aladdin ($24.5m), Godzilla: King of the Monsters ($15.5m), and Rocketman ($14m). Though it had an abysmal opening weekend last week, the Godzilla sequel surprised many box office experts with a massive 67.5 percent drop this weekend, moving from last week's top spot to #4 this weekend.

Dark Phoenix has a 22 percent rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has 2.2 out of 5 stars in ComicBook.com's Composite Rankings amidst recent reports suggesting the film could end up losing upwards of $100m for its new parent company in Disney.

"In the end, Dark Phoenix is not the conclusion fans of the X-Men franchise might have been hoping for and it doesn't make much of an effort to tie every narrative thread into a nice bow as the franchise is probably coming to an end here," ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis said in his review of the film. "It's a bit behind its time. Still, the movie is fun and safe movie for fans of the characters to watch in a theater with a bass-heavy sound system, and leaves the key characters well enough to remember them fondly."

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Dark Phoenix is now in theaters.