Dark Phoenix’s Director Explains Why The X-Men Movie’s Release Date Was Pushed Back Again

Marvel X-Men fans were pretty concerned when 20^th Century Fox announced that it was pushing back the release date of X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

The film was the fourth in the new X-Men film series starring James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) and the rest was taking on an important part of the X-Men comic book saga and many were holding their breaths for the movie. Instead, Fox decided to push back the film from its original November 2018 release date to a February 2019 release.

Now, Dark Pheonix director Simon Kinberg gives fans the exact reason for the date changes.

Speaking in an interview with Collider (via CBR), the filmmaker explains the release date pushbacks, saying that reshoots are a standard practice for Hollywood movies. According to Kinberg, Dark Phoenix needed a bit of work, and so the release date was pushed back instead of forcing a half-baked movie to release on time.

"Mostly we focused on the third act, both emotionally and in terms of the physical scale and the action of the third act that we adjusted. And then there were certain things in the first two acts of the movie - very few things, but to set up those changes in the third act we had to adjust some things in the first two acts so that all was fluid and felt consistent," the director told the publication.

However, according to Kinberg, the reshoots weren't the only reason why Dark Phoenix was delayed. According to the filmmaker, it was the addition of digital effects and the option of moving to a better release date on the character that pushed Fox to do what it did.

"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," Kinberg explained. "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."

Fans who've seen the pushbacks as a sign of trouble for X-Men: Dark Phoenix certainly doesn't seem to have much to worry about – though there's still the question about whether or not the movie is going to do any good. Fans complained about the first official trailer being a whole lot bland. Let's hope that things improve as the film comes along.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix hits cinemas February 14, 2019.
Read: Dark Phoenix Was Inspired By Logan According to Director Simon Kinberg