Fox Executive Says The Disney Merger Is Hurting ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’

Several Fox marketing and distribution executives have recently come forward and spoken out on the rarified air surrounding the new X-Men film, Dark Phoenix, days before the Fox-Disney merger takes place.

According to several testimonies picked up by Vanity Fair, the Fox team working on X-Men: Dark Phoenix is freaking out over the silence around the Fox-Disney merger and how it will eventually harm the film’s release on June later this year. One Fox Executive told the magazine that they weren’t meeting deadlines and the uncertainty must be terrible for the filmmakers attached to the film:

“We know when we are dropping a trailer, but we are nowhere near where we should be at this time. It’s frightening. I would be mad if I were a filmmaker.”

Another person stated that they didn’t know if they would even have a job still after the film releases:

“What’s not normal is the elephant in the room, which is that most people there are not going to be the people that are still in the job when the movie opens.”

Lastly, a Fox marketing executive rounded up their statements saying that all-in-all, no one is telling them anything about their future:

“Nobody has come around and said, ‘This is what’s going on.’ Why can’t they just tell us that there is no place for us? Why can’t they let anyone know? We are not leaving because we didn’t make money for the company or we did a bad job. We are leaving because of pure capitalism.”

The truth of the matter is that Fox and Disney are very close to sealing their multibillion-dollar merger and until the deal is struck, authorities in both parties may be reluctant to reveal future plans for their franchises, job cuts or even strategies involving short term releases like X-Men: Dark Phoenix or the many times delayed New Mutants, which seem to rely only on their promotional inertia at the moment. Unfortunately, the teams around these franchises will have to wait a little bit longer for them to know their fate. Although X-Men: Dark Phoenix seems to be standing by its release date, it’s rumored that New Mutants could be released on Hulu or even Disney+.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain. Here’s the film’s synopsis:

“In DARK PHOENIX, the X-MEN face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiraling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite — not only to save Jean’s soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy.”

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

Stay tuned to Heroic Hollywood for the latest news on the future of the X-Men.

Source: Vanity Fair