After the failure of X3 I would have thought
scriptwriters in Hollywood would have learned their lesson: Jean Grey is
kind of a boring character because her personality is so flat.
But
no, they decided to try again for another film, following the same
idiotic formula wherein she remains a flat 2-dimensional character.
So much emphasis is placed on her powers and her love interest(s), they always forget to develop her personality.
Oh
and the producers... they conveniently forget about other female
characters like Rogue who were historically more popular. Rogue was the
focus of the very first X-Men film, but since then has been cut out
despite being a fan favourite amongst comic book fans. Jean as a character was never
particularly popular. The phoenix force was basically a crutch to make
her character more interesting. You see this regularly with YA
fiction... whenever a character is too boring writers just give the
character a special ability to make them more interesting.
It
is the reason why you see OP (over-powered) characters so much in the
genre. The character is boring so the solution is to make them OP.
Oh
and to give them a love triangle. Back in X3 it was the
Jean-Scott-Wolverine love triangle that they tried to use, but they did a
disappearing act on Scott early in the film so the love triangle bit
became more one sided and fell flat.
So
without the love triangle crutch and the dark phoenix crutch, what does
Jean Grey have going for her? What is her personality? How does she
grow as a character? Sadly her character is flat and there isn't much
character growth, so is there any surprise the new Dark Phoenix film
falls flat in the box office?
Dark Phoenix's Domestic Total as of Jun. 11, 2019: $39,190,534. Foreign: $103,743,621.
So $142,934,155... On a film that cost over $200 million to make. They are going to be lucky if they break even.
I am not
surprised. It is the same shoddy writing they keep making to suck in
teenagers, not realizing that the fans of the X-Men are mostly people in
their 30s-40s-50s who grew up with the comic books.
So the producers have made a second error. They have forgotten who their real audience is. They should not be targeting teenagers. They should be targeting people in their 30s to 50s. This effects both how to write the story as a more mature story, but also how to market it to a specific audience.
Yes, X-Men is primarily about teenagers... but the fans of the X-Men are older. Younger audiences (teens and young adults) don't care about X-Men as much. The younger audience has already moved on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and when competing against the MCU Avengers it is pretty obvious who is going to win.
Solution? This film might be the final nail in the coffin for the Fox owned X-Men Franchise... but there is good news. Disney bought them out. The whole franchise can be rebooted within the MCU five years from now. (We might finally get to see Wolverine and the Hulk working as a team.)
Hot Tip for any future actresses being asked to portray Jean Grey. Your contract should specifically state that there is no way in hell you will appear in any film portraying a 3rd version of Dark Phoenix. Hollywood should just give it a rest. The character is a flop regardless of whether you put a former Bond Girl in the role or whether you hire a former Game of Thrones star.
